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FORDHAM  UNIVERSITY  PRESS  SERIES 

MAKERS  OF  MODERN  MEDICINE 
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THE  POPES  AND  SCIENCE 
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ESSAYS  IN  PASTORAL  MEDICINE 

o'MALLEY    and    WALSH 

A  manual  of  information  on  medical  subjects  for  the  clergy, 
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EDUCATION 


HOW   OLD   THE   NEW 


X         BY 

J.  w 


JAMES  J.  WALSH,  M. D. , Ph. D. , Litt.  D. 

•  »• 
Dean  and  Professor  of  the  History  of  Medicine  and  of  Nervous 
Diseases  at  Fordham  University  School  of  Medicine  ;  Professor  of 
Physiological  Psychology  at  the  Cathedral  College,  New  York 


NEW   YORK 
FORDHAM   UNIVERSITY    PRESS 

1910 


Copyright,  1910,  by 
JAMES   J.  WALSH 


THE    OUINN    i    BODEN    CO.     PRESS 
HAMWAY,    N.   J, 


TO  THE 

Xabter  iHlumni  ^atiaUt|> 

MOST  OP  THE  THOUGHTS  CONTAIKED  IN  THIS  VOLUME 
WERE  ORIGINALLY  EXPRESSED  AT  OUR  BREAKFASTS.  IT 
SEEMS  ONLY  FITTING,  THEN,  THAT  ON  PRESENTATION  TO  A 
LARGER  AUDIENCE  THEY  SHOULD  BE  DEDICATED  TO  YOU. 

^        r     .    ,      r.  J.     J.     W. 

Our  Lady's  Day,  August  15,  1910 


• 


PREFACE 

The  reason  for  publishing  this  volume  of  lec- 
tures and  addresses  is  the  persuasion  that  present- 
day  educators  are  viewing  the  history  of  education 
with  short-sighted  vision.  An  impression  pre- 
vails that  only  the  last  few  generations  have  done 
work  of  serious  significance  in  education.  The 
history  of  old-time  education  is  neglected,  or  is 
treated  as  of  at  most  antiquarian  interest  and 
there  is  a  failure  to  understand  its  true  value. 
The  connecting  link  between  the  lectures  and  ad- 
dresses is  the  effort  to  express  in  terms  of  the 
present  what  educators  were  doing  in  the  past. 
Once  upon  a  time,  when  I  proclaimed  the  happi- 
ness of  the  English  workmen  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  the  very  positive  objection  was  raised, 
"  How  could  they  be  happy  since  their  wages  were 
only  a  few  cents  a  day?"  For  response  it  was 
only  necessary  to  point  out  that  for  his  eight 
cents,  the  minimum  wage  by  act  of  Parliament, 
the  workman  could  buy  a  pair  of  handmade 
shoes,  that  being  the  maximum  price  established 
by  law,  and  other  necessaries  at  similar  prices. 
If  old-time  education  is  studied  with  this  same 
care  to  translate  its  meaning  into  modern  values, 
then  the  very  oldest  education  of  which  we  have 
any  record  takes  on  significance  even  for  our  time. 


vi  PREFACE 

While  it  is  generally  supposed  that  there  are 
many  new  features  in  modern  education,  it  re- 
quires but  slight  familiarity  with  educational  his- 
tory to  know  that  there  is  very  little  that  is  novel. 
Such  supposedly  new  phases  as  nature-study  and 
technical  training  and  science,  physical  as  well  as 
ethical,  are  all  old  stories,  though  they  have  had 
negative  phases  during  which  it  would  be  hard  to 
to  trace  them.  The  more  we  know  about  the  his- 
tory of  education  the  greater  is  our  respect  for 
educators  at  all  times.  Nearly  always  they  had  a 
perfectly  clear  idea  of  what  they  were  trying  to 
do,  they  faced  the  problems  of  education  in  quite 
the  same  spirit  that  we  do  and  often  solved  them 
very  well.  Indeed  the  results  of  many  periods  of 
old-time  education  are  much  better  than  our  own, 
even  when  judged  by  our  standards. 

Unfortunately  there  exists  a  very  common 
persuasion  that  evolution  plays  a  large  role  in 
education  and  that  we,  "  the  heirs  of  all  the  ages 
in  the  foremost  files  of  time,"  are  necessarily  in 
the  forefront  of  educational  advance.  There  has 
been  much  progress  in  education  in  the  last  cen- 
tury, but  it  would,  indeed,  be  a  hopeless  world 
if  there  had  not  been  progress  out  of  the  depths 
in  which  education  was  plunged  in  the  eighteenth 
century.  There  were  a  number  of  reformers  in 
education  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  and  the 
beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century.  It  was 
rather  easy  to  be  an  educational  reformer  at  that 
time.     The  lowest  period  in  the  history  of  educa- 


PREFACE  vii 

tion  was  about  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury. It  has  been  assumed  that  since  we  are  far 
ahead  of  that  generation  we  must  be  still  farther 
ahead  of  the  people  who  preceded  them.  That 
is  the  mistake.  There  are  periods  of  education 
of  very  great  significance  centuries  long  before 
that  time. 

In  educational  lectures  and  addresses  for  the 
past  five  years,  I  have  been  trying  to  translate 
into  modern  terms  the  meaning  of  these  old 
periods  of  education.  A  great  many  teachers 
have  thought  the  ideas  valuable  and  suggestive 
and  so  I  am  tempted  to  publish  them  in  book  form. 
There  is  an  additional  reason,  that  of  wishing  to 
create  a  bond  of  sympathy  between  the  two  sys- 
tems of  education  that  have  grown  up  in  this 
country.  For  some  three  generations  now  Catho- 
lic educators  have  been  independently  building 
up  a  system  of  education  from  the  elementary 
schools  to  the  university.  The  American  world 
of  education  is  coming  to  recognize  how  much  they 
have  accomplished.  There  has  even  been  some 
curiosity  expressed  as  to  how  it  was  all  done  in 
spite  of  apparently  insuperable  obstacles.  One 
phase  of  Catholic  education,  its  thorough-going 
conservatism  and  definite  effort  to  value  the  past 
properly  and  take  advantage  of  its  precious  les- 
sons, is  here  represented. 

My  own  educational  interests  have  been  taken 
up  much  more  of  late  years  with  medicine  than 
with  other   phases   of   this   subject.     Hence   the 


viii  PREFACE 

volume  contains  certain  addresses  relating  to  the 
history  of  medical  education.  They  are  more  in- 
timately linked  with  the  general  subject  of  edu- 
cation than  might  perhaps  be  thought.  We  have 
had  finely  organized  medical  education  at  a  num- 
ber of  times  in  the  past,  and,  indeed,  at  the  pres- 
ent moment  can  find  inspiration  and  incentive  in 
studying  the  legal  regulation  of  medicine  and  of 
medical  education  in  what  might  seem  to  be  so- 
unpromising  a  time  as  the  thirteenth  century. 
For  true  educational  progress  there  has  always 
been  need  of  close  sympathy  between  the  non- 
professional and  the  professional  department  of 
universities.  Only  when  the  professional  schools 
are  real  graduate  departments,  requiring  under- 
graduate training  for  admission,  is  the  university 
doing  its  work  properly.  This  was  the  rule  in 
the  past — whence  the  precious  lessons  for  the  pres- 
ent in  the  story  of  these  old-time  universities. 

These  lectures  and  addresses  were  actually  de- 
livered, not  merely  read.  They  were  written  with 
that  purpose.  Certain  repetitions  that  would  have 
been  avoided  if  the  articles  had  been  prepared 
directly  for  reading  and  not  for  an  audience,  may 
be  noted.  Some  of  the  subjects  overlap  and  cer- 
tain phases  had  to  be  treated  usually  in  variant 
form  in  different  lectures.  For  these  faults  the 
reader's  indulgence  is  craved. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  .  PAGE 

I.  EDUCATION,   HOW    OLD   THE    NEW        ...  3 

n.  THE  FIRST  MODERN  UNIVERSITY  ....  63 

III.  MEDIEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES      .       .  93 

IV.  IDEAL  POPULAR  EDUCATION 155 

V.    CYCLES   OF    FEMININE    EDUCATION   AND   IN- 
FLUENCE         199 

VI.    THE  CHURCH  AND  FEMININE  EDUCATION      .      273 

VII.    ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION     .        .       .299 

VIII.    THE    MEDICAL    PROFESSION    FOR    SIX   THOU- 
SAND YEARS        . 349 

IX.     UNIVERSITY  MEDICAL  SCHOOLS     .       .       .       .377 

X.    THE  COLLEGE  MAN  IN  LIFE 403 

XI.     NEW  ENGLANDISM 433 


EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW 


"  Nothing  under  the  sun  is  new,  neither  is  any  man 
able  to  say :  Behold  this  is  new :  For  it  hath  already  gone 
before  in  the  ages  that  were  before  us." — Ecclesiastes 
i:  10. 

"  Nullum  est  jam  dictum,  quod  non  dictum  sit  prius." — 

Terence,  Eun.  Prol.,  41. 

[Nothing  is  now  said  which  was  not  said  before.] 

St.   Jerome   relates   that  his   preceptor  Donatus,  com- 
menting on  this  passage  of  Terence,  used  to  say: 
"  Pereant  qui  ante  nos  nostra  dixerunt." 
[May  they  perish  who  said  our  good  things  before  us.] 


EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW* 

Popular  lectures  are  usually  on  some  very  up- 
to-date  subject.  Indeed,  as  a  rule  they  are  on 
subjects  that  are  developing  at  the  moment,  and 
the  main  aim  of  the  lecturer  is  to  forecast  the 
future.  It  is  before  a  thing  has  happened  that  we 
want  to  know  about  it  now,  and  though,  as  not  in- 
frequently occurs,  the  lecturer's  forecast  does  not 
in  the  event  prove  him  a  prophet  nor  the  son  of  a 
prophet,  for  nature  usually  accomplishes  her  pur- 
poses more  simply  than  the  closet  philosopher 
anticipates,  at  least  we  have  the  satisfaction  for 
the  moment  of  thinking  that  not  only  are  we  up 
to  date  but  a  little  ahead  of  it.  Unfortunately  I 
have  to  claim  your  indulgence  this  evening  in  this 
matter,  for  taking  just  the  opposite  course.  I  am 
to  talk  about  the  oldest  book  in  the  world,  its  old- 
fashioned  yet  novel  contents,  its  up-to-date  apph- 
cations,  and  its  significance  for  the  history  of  the 
race  and,  above  all,  the  history  of  education.    The 

*  Material  for  this  lecture  was  gathered  for  one  of  a  course  of 
lectures  on  Phases  of  Education  delivered  at  St.  Mary's  College,  South 
Bend,  Ind.,  at  the  Sacred  Heart  Academy,  Kenwood,  Albany,  N.  Y., 
and  at  St.  Mary's  College,  Monroe,  Mich.,  1909.  In  somewhat  de- 
veloped form  it  was  delivered  to  the  public  school  teachers  of  New 
Orleans  at  the  beginning  of  1910.  In  very  nearly  its  present  form  it 
was  the  opening  lecture  at  the  course  of  the  Brooklyn  Institute  of 
Arts  and  Sciences,  on  "  How  Old  the  New  Is,"  delivered  in  the  spring 
of  1910. 

8 


4  EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW 

one  interesting  feature,  as  I  hope,  of  what  I  have 
to  say,  is  that  old-time  methods  in  education  as 
suggested  by  this  little  volume  are  strangely  fa- 
miliar and  its  contents  are  as  significant  now  as 
they  were  in  the  old  time  from  which  it  comes. 
The  book  was  written  almost  as  long  before  Solo- 
mon as  Solomon  is  before  us,  yet  there  is  a  depth 
of  practical  wisdom  about  it  that  eminently 
recalls  the  expression  "  there  is  nothing  new  under 
the  sun." 

So  much  attention  has  been  given  to  education 
in  recent  years,  we  have  made  such  a  prominent 
feature  of  it  in  life,  have  spent  so  much  money 
on  it,  have  devoted  so  much  time  and  thought  to 
its  development  and  organization,  that  we  feel 
very  sure  that  what  we  are  doing  now  in  every 
line  of  educational  effort  represents — indeed  must 
represent — a  great  advance  over  anything  and 
everything  that  was  ever  accomplished  in  the  past. 
To  say  anything  else  would  seem  to  most  people 
pure  pessimism.  It  would  mean  that  in  spite  of  all 
the  efforts  of  men  we  were  not  making  advances. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  all  of  us  know  that  it  is  quite 
possible  to  make  heroic  efforts  so  sadly  misdi- 
rected that  they  accomplish  nothing  and  get  us 
nowhere.  Progress  depends  not  on  effort  but  on 
the  proper  direction  of  the  effort.  We  are  sup- 
posed, however,  to  represent  one  phase  and  that 
at  the  front  rank  of  an  inevitable  advance  in  things 
human,  pushed  forward,  as  it  were,  by  the  wheel 
of  evolution  in  its  ceaseless  progress,  and  bound 


EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW  5 

therefore  to  make  advancement.  It  is  with  this 
idea,  so  commonly  accepted,  that  I  would  take 
issue  by  showing  how  much  was  accomplished  in 
the  past  that  anticipates  much  of  what  we  are 
occupied  with  at  the  present  time,  and  that  serves 
to  show  what  men  can  accomplish  at  any  time 
when  they  set  themselves  to  doing  things  with 
high  ideals,  well-considered  purpose  and  strenuous 
effort. 

There  are  those  who  insist  that  unless  men  have 
the  encouraging  feeling  that  they  are  making 
progress,  their  efforts  are  likely  to  be  less  strenu- 
ous than  would  otherwise  be  the  case.  There  are 
those  who  think  apparently  that  compliments 
make  the  best  incentive  for  successful  effort. 
Some  of  us  who  know  that  the  world's  best  work, 
or  at  least  the  work  of  many  of  the  world's  great 
men,  has  been  done  in  the  midst  of  opposition,  in 
the  ver}^  teeth  of  criticism,  in  spite  of  discourage- 
ment, may  not  agree  with  that  opinion.  The  his- 
tory of  successful  accomplishment  seems  to  show, 
indeed,  that  incentive  is  all  the  stronger  as  the 
result  of  the  opposition  which  arouses  to  renewed 
efforts  and  the  criticism  which  strips  whatever  is 
new  of  errors  that  inevitably  cling  to  it  at  the 
beginning.  On  the  other  hand,  if  there  is  any- 
thing that  the  lessons  of  history  make  clear  it 
is  that  self-complacency  is  the  very  worst  thing, 
above  all  for  intellectual, effort  of  any  kind,  and 
that  criticism,  when  judicious,  is  always  beneficial. 

Above  all,  comparisons  are  likely  to  be  chasten- 


6  EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW 

ing  in  their  effects  to  make  us  realize  that  what 
we  are  doing  at  any  particular  time  does  not  mean 
so  much  more  than  what  many  others  have  done 
and  may  indeed  even  mean  less.  It  is  rather  in- 
teresting, then,  to  set  our  complacent  assurance 
that  we  are  doing  such  wonderful  work  in  educa- 
tion and  represent  such  magnificent  progress  over 
against  some  of  the  educational  work  of  the  past. 
After  all  we  are  not  nearly  so  self-congratulatory 
about  our  education,  its  ways  and  methods  and, 
above  all,  its  success  as  we  were  a  dozen  years  ago. 
There  are  many  jarring  notes  of  discordant 
criticism  of  methods  heard,  there  are  many  depre- 
catory remarks  passed  with  regard  to  our  sup- 
posed success,  and  there  have  been  some  edu- 
cators unkind  enough, — and,  unfortunately,  they 
are  often  of  the  inner  circle  of  our  educational 
life, — to  say  that  we  are  lacking  in  scholarship 
to  a  great  degree,  and  that  much  of  our  so-called 
educational  progress  has  been  a  tendency  toward 
an  accumulation  of  superficial  information  rather 
than  a  training  of  the  intellect  for  power.  The 
absolute  need  of  the  distinction  between  educa- 
tion for  information  and  for  power  has  been 
coming  home  to  us.  Above  all,  we  have  felt  that 
we  were  not  a  little  deceived  by  appearances  in 
education  and  so  are  more  ready  to  listen  to  sug- 
gestions of  various  kinds. 

Under  these  circumstances  it  has  seemed  to  me, 
that  a  calling  of  attention  to  what  was  accom- 
plished  at   certain   long-past   periods    for   educa- 


EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW  7 

tion,  would  not  only  be  of  interest  as  information 
for  teachers,  but  might  possibly  be  helpful  or  at 
least  suggestive,  in  the  midst  of  the  somewhat  dis- 
ordered state  of  mind  that  has  resulted  from  re- 
cent criticisms  of  our  educational  methods  and 
success,  by  men  whose  interest  in  education  can- 
not be  doubted  and  whose  opportunities  for  know- 
ing are  the  best.  For  we  are  in  a  time  when 
nearly  every  important  educator,  president  of  a 
university,  dean  of  a  department,  old-time  teacher 
or  old,  thoughtful  pupil  with  the  interest  of  Alma 
Mater  at  heart,  who  has  had  something  to  say 
with  regard  to  education  has  said  it  in  rather 
derogatory  fashion.  Perhaps,  then,  it  will  do  us 
good  to  study  the  periods  of  the  past  and  see 
what  they  did,  how  their  methods  differed  or  still 
more  often  were  like  our  own,  what  their  success 
was  like  and  what  we  may  learn  from  them.  The 
surprising  thing  is  the  number  of  repetitions  of 
present-day  experiences  in  education  that  we  shall 
find  in  the  past.  This  is  true,  however,  in  every 
mode  of  thinking  quite  as  well  as  in  education, 
once  careful  investigation  of  conditions  is  made. 

If  we  begin  at  the  beginning  and  take  what  is 
sometimes  called  the  oldest  book  in  the  world, 
we  shall  see  how  early  definite  educational  ideas 
took  form.  It  is  a  set  of  moral  lessons  or  in- 
structions given,  or  supposed  to  be  given,  by  a 
father  to  his  son.  The  father's  name  was  Ptah 
Hotep.  He  was  a  vizier  of  King  Itosi  of  the 
Fifth  Dynasty  in  Egypt,  some  time  about  3500  B.C. 


8  EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW 

The  Egyptologists  used  to  date  him  earlier  than 
that,  but  in  recent  years  they  have  been  clipping 
centuries  off  Egyptian  dates  until  perhaps  King 
Itosi  must  be  considered  as  having  lived  probably 
not  earlier  than  3350  B.C.  That  makes  very  little 
difference  for  our  purpose,  however.  The  oldest 
manuscript  copy  of  the  book  was  written  appar- 
ently not  later  than  2900  B.C.  It  exists  as  the 
famous  Prisse  Papyrus  in  the  Bibliotheque  Na- 
tionale  in  Paris.  There  is  another  copy  in  the 
British  Museum.  There  is  a  pretty  thorough 
agreement  as  to  these  dates,  so  that  we  can  be  sure 
that  this  little  book  which  has  come  to  be  known 
as  the  Instruction  of  Ptah  Hotep,  or  the  Proverbs 
of  Ptah  Hotpu — another  form  of  his  name  with 
a  variation  in  the  title — represents  the  wisdom  of 
the  generations  who  lived  in  Egypt  about  5000 
years  ago.  It  was  written,  as  I  have  said,  almost 
as  long  before  Solomon  as  Solomon  is  before  us, 
so  that  the  character  of  the  moral  instructions 
which  it  contains  is   extremely  interesting. 

There  must  have  been  a  number  of  copies  of 
it  made.  This  and  books  like  it  were  used  as 
schoolbooks  in  Egypt.  They  were  employed 
somewhat  as  we  employ  copybooks.  The  writing 
of  the  manuscript  is  the  old  hieratic,  cursive  writ- 
ing of  the  Egyptians,  not  their  hieroglyphics,  and 
the  children  used  portions  of  this  book  as  copies, 
listened  to  dictation  from  it  and  learned  to  write 
the  language  by  imitating  it.  Of  books  similar  to 
it  we  have  a  number  of  manuscript  copies.     Some 


EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW  9 

of  these  copies  preserved  from  before  2000  B.C. 
are  full  of  errors  such  as  school  children  would 
make  in  taking  down  dictation.  This  was  their 
method  of  teaching  spelhng,  and  after  the  chil- 
dren had  spelled  the  words  the  teacher  went  over 
them  and  corrected  the  mistakes.  These  correc- 
tions were  made  in  a  different  colored  ink  from 
that  used  by  the  pupils!  The  whole  system  of 
teaching,  as  it  thus  comes  before  us,  resembles 
our  own  elementary  school  teaching  much  more 
than  we  might  think  possible.  Spelling,  writing, 
composition  are  all  taught  in  this  way  yet,  or  at 
least  they  were  when  I  was  at  school,  and  while 
I  have  heard  that  some  of  the  old-fashioned 
methods  were  going  out,  I  have  also  received  some 
hints  of  the  reaction  by  which  they  are  coming 
in  again,  so  that  the  Egyptian  methods  take  on  a 
new  interest. 

Perhaps  there  is  no  more  interesting  feature  of 
the  education  of  that  olden  time  than  the  fact 
that  these  books  which  were  used  as  copybooks  in 
the  school  contain  moral  lessons.  We  have  been- 
neglecting  these  in  our  schools  and  have  come  to 
recognize  the  danger  of  such  neglect.  Definite 
efforts  at  the  organization  of  moral  teaching  in 
some  form  are  being  made  by  many  teachers,  and 
their  necessity  is  recognized  by  all  educators. 
All  of  these  old  Egyptian  books,  then,  will  have 
a  special  claim  on  our  interest  at  the  present 
time.  Above  all,  the  oldest  of  them,  though  it 
is  literally  the  oldest  book  in  the  world,  merits 


10         EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW 

our  attention,  because  its  moral  teaching  is  very 
clear-cut  and  its  emphasis  on  ethical  precepts  very 
pronounced. 

We  would  be  very  prone  to  think  that  what  an 
old  father  has  to  say  to  his  boy  over  fifty  cen- 
turies ago  would  have,  at  most,  only  an  anti- 
quarian interest  for  us.  It  is  not  easy  even  to 
imagine  that  the  old  gentleman  could  have  known 
human  nature  so  well  and  written  from  so  close 
to  vthe  heart  of  humanity  because  of  his  love  for 
his  boy,  that  his  words  would  always  have  a  prac- 
tical application  in  life.  Such,  however,  is  actu- 
ally the  case.  Any  father  of  the  modern  time 
would  be  proud  to  be  able  to  give  to  his  boy  the 
eminently  practical  maxims  that  this  old  father 
has  written  down.  If  there  is  any  advice  that 
will  be  helpful  for  youth,  for  the  young  usually 
demand  that  they  shall  have  their  own  experi- 
ence and  not  take  it  at  second  hand,  this  is  the 
advice  that  is  of  value.  Only  fools,  it  is  said,  learn 
by  their  own  experience,  but  then  there  is  good 
•Scripture  warrant  for  believing  that  they  were  not 
all  wise  men  in  the  olden  time,  and  we  are  pretty 
well  agreed  that  all  the  fools  are  not  dead  yet. 
If  advice  can  be  of  service,  however,  from  one 
generation  to  another,  then  here  is  the  wisdom 
of  age  for  the  inexperience  of  youth.  At  least 
it  will  serve  after  the  event  to  show  youth  that  it 
was  properly  warned  and  that  it  is  entirely  its 
own  fault  if  it  has  been  making  a  fool  of  itself — 
as  other  generations  have  done  before. 


EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW  11 

It  might  be  expected  that  at  least  in  form  these 
old-time  maxims  would  be  rude  and  crude,  ex- 
pressed with  an  old  man's  loquaciousness  and 
with  many  personal  foibles.  Fortunately  for  us, 
while  to  his  son  Ptah  Hotep  was  very  probably 
an  old  man,  he  was  not  what  most  of  us  would  call 
old.  In  Egypt  they  married  comparatively  young. 
This  boy  was  probably  the  oldest  son.  It  is  usu- 
ally for  the  oldest  that  such  advice  is  treasured 
up  and  written  out.  The  father  then,  giving  his 
advice  just  as  his  son  was  leaving  the  paternal 
household  when  he  had  married  a  wife  and  was 
about  to  set  up  a  home  of  his  own,  was  probably 
not  more  than  forty.  To  seventeen  or  eighteen, 
forty  is  quite  ancient.  To  most  of  the  rest  of  us 
it  is  entirely  too  young  to  be  trusted  absolutely  in 
serious  matters.  Aristotle  declared  that  a  man's 
body  reaches  physical  perfection  at  thirty-five 
and  his  mind  reaches  intellectual  maturity  at 
forty-nine.  His  students  were  inclined  to  think 
that  this  age  was  entirely  too  old,  his  philosophic 
contemporaries  of  his  own  generation  and  the 
members  of  national  academies  and  learned  so- 
cieties of  most  of  the  generations  since,  have  been 
quite  sure  that  the  term  set  was  entirely  too 
young. 

Ptah  Hotep's  son,  then,  very  probably  looked 
on  his  father  as  most  sons  under  twenty  are  prone 
to  do,  as  a  dear  old-fashioned  gentleman  (he  does 
not  like  to  use  the  word  old  fogy  for  his  father, 
reserving  it  for  the  fathers  of  others),  who  would 


12  EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW 

be  quite  tolerable  if  he  only  had  a  little  more 
sympathy  with  the  wonderful  advance  that  is  in 
the  world  in  this  new  generation.  The  real  young 
man  of  the  time,  however,  was  the  father  who 
wrote  his  maxims,  the  condensed  wisdom  of  his 
experience  of  life,  with  a  directness,  an  absolute 
clarity,  an  occasional  appeal  to  figures  of  speech 
and  a  variety  of  expression  so  striking  as  to  make 
his  work  literature.  As  such  it  has  come  down 
to  us.  It  is  eminently  human  in  every  way,  and 
while  there  is  here  and  there  an  unfortunate 
tendency  to  repeat  words  of  similar  sound  and 
different  meaning,  after  the  fashion  of  what  we 
call  punning,  this  is  pardonable  enough  since  so 
many  of  our  friends  indulge  in  it  and  give  us 
practice  in  pardoning,  while,  on  the  whole,  the  old 
man  wrote  as  wisely  as  Polonius,  and  in  a  style 
not  quite  as  artificial  as  that  which  Shakespeare 
has  invented  as  suitable  to  the  old  Danish  Prime 
JNIinister,  whom  the  ancient  vizier  of  Egypt  recalls 
so  vividly  in  many  ways. 

No  idea  is  probably  more  ingrained  in  modern 
thinking,  no  opinion  is  more  generally  accepted, 
no  conclusion  is  surer  to  most  people,  than  that 
we  are  in  the  midst  of  marvellous  progress  in  this 
little  world  of  ours,  and  that  our  generation  is 
somewhere  at  the  apex  of  the  Pyramid  of  Prog- 
ress, elevated  thereto  by  the  attainments  of  the 
generations  that  have  preceded  us.  As  the  Poet 
Laureate  put  it  at  the  close  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, "  we  are  the  heirs  of  all  the  ages  in  the  fore- 


EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW  13 

most  files  of  time  " ;  and  because  we  have  the  ad- 
vantage of  our  predecessors'  progress  in  their 
time,  we  are,  of  course,  in  all  that  makes  for  human 
happiness  and  fulness  of  life,  very  far  ahead  of 
those  gone  before  us.  The  farther  back  we  go  in 
history,  then,  the  lower  down  men  are  supposed  to 
be  found  in  all  that  stands  for  intellectuality  and 
in  all  that  represents  the  possibilities  of  human 
achievement  at  its  best.  It  is  now  well  understood 
that  the  generations  of  the  past  are  not  so  much 
to  be  blamed  for  their  backwardness  as  to  be 
pitied  for  the  misfortune  that,  having  come  earlier 
in  the  world's  history,  they  could  not  have  the 
advantages  that  we  enjoy,  and  therefore  could 
only  attain  much  lower  stages  in  human  progress 
than  ours. 

Apparently,  there  are  very  few  people  who  do 
not  share  in  the  opinions  thus  expressed.  The 
nineteenth  century  has  been  proclaimed  the  cen- 
tury of  evolution;  and  the  idea  of  evolution  has 
become  so  much  a  part  of  the  thought  of  our  time 
that  man  also  is  assumed  to  be  in  the  midst  of  it, 
and  history  is  presumed  to  show  distinctly  the 
wonderful  advance  that  humanity  has  made.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  extremely  difficult  to  point 
out  definitely  where  progress  in  humanity  may  be 
observed.  Ambassador  Bryce  was  asked,  two 
years  ago,  to  deliver  an  address  before  Phi  Beta 
Kappa  at  Harvard,  and  took  for  his  subject 
"What  is  Progress?"  Phi  Beta  Kappa  is  the 
fraternity  that  admits  into  its  classes  only  the  best 


14  EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW 

students, — men  who  have  proved  their  ability  by 
success.  Mr.  Bryce,  speaking  to  the  most  intelli- 
gent university  graduates,  might  be  expected  to 
make  much  of  our  wonderful  recent  progress. 
The  address  subsequently  appeared  in  the  Atlantic 
Monthly  for  August,  1907.  Far  from  any  glori- 
fication of  progress,  the  historian  of  the  American 
Commonwealth,  who  has  demonstrated  his  breadth 
of  view  and  his  notable  lack  of  British  insularity 
by  the  large  way  he  has  written  about  us,  so  that 
we  have  adopted  his  work  as  a  text-book  of  in- 
formation about  ourselves,  is  very  dubious  as  to 
whether  there  is  any  progress  in  the  world.  There 
is  certainly  no  progress  in  man's  highest  expres- 
sions of  his  intelligence.  As  Mr.  Bryce  says: 
"  The  poetry  of  the  early  Hebrews  and  of  the 
early  Greeks  has  never  been  surpassed  and  hardly 
ever  equalled.  Neither  has  the  philosophy  of 
Plato  and  Aristotle,  nor  the  speeches  of  Demos- 
thenes and  Cicero."  No  one  pretends  that  there 
is  any  progress  in  art.  The  masterpieces  of 
architecture,  sculpture,  and  painting  date  as  a 
rule  from  long  before  our  time,  some  of  them 
nearly  twenty-five  hundred  years  back. 

As  has  been  very  well  said,  the  man  who  talks 
much  about  progress  in  our  time  usually  knows 
only  the  history  of  human  thought  in  his  own 
generation,  and  not  very  much  about  that.  In 
nearly  every  important  phase  of  human  achieve- 
ment, we  are,  in  present  accomplishment,  far  be- 
hind the  great  predecessors.     In  our  generation, 


EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW  15 

we  are  confessedly  imitators  in  every  phase  of 
aesthetic  expression.  In  painting,  sculpture,  art 
and  literature,  our  models  are  all  in  the  past,  and 
we  are  quite  frank  in  confessing  that  we  are  doing 
no  work  at  all  so  good  as  the  work  of  our  fore- 
fathers of  manj^  generations  and  sometimes  many 
centuries  ago.  Whence,  then,  comes  the  idea  of 
progress?  It  has  obtained  most  of  its  vogue  from 
the  theory  of  evolution;  and  the  lack  of  evidence 
for  evolution  in  general,  in  spite  of  the  persua- 
sion on  the  part  of  many  educated  people  that 
there  are  proofs  for  it,  can  be  very  well  judged 
from  the  corresponding  lack  of  evidence  with  re- 
gard to  progress  in  humanity.  There  is  com- 
plete absence  of  proof  for  this  latter,  when  the 
situation  with  regard  to  human  achievement  in  the 
really  great  things  of  human  life  is  examined. 
Indeed,  it  would  be  amusing  were  it  not  amaz- 
ing to  think  how  readily  we  have  come  to  accept 
notions  for  which  there  is  so  little  substantiation. 
To  many  this  will  doubtless  seem  a  surprising 
declaration  to  make,  after  all  that  has  been  writ- 
ten, and  universally  accepted  as  most  people  think, 
with  regard  to  evolution  by  the  great  minds  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  What  evolution  means,  how- 
ever, is  summed  up  in  the  theory  of  descent,  that 
is  that  living  things  as  we  know  them  now,  have 
all  come  from  simpler  forms  and  perhaps  all  from 
a  single  form.  The  only  other  phase  of  interest 
in  evolution  is  what  concerns  the  theory  of  natu- 
ral selection,  which  is  supposed  by  many  people  to 


16         EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW 

have  been  demonstrated  in  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury. It  may  be  well  for  those  who  think  thus  to 
have  recalled  to  them  what  a  recent  writer  on  the 
subject^  himself  a  distinguished  investigator  in 
biology,  a  professor  at  Leland  Stanford  Univer- 
sity, where  under  the  influence  of  President  Jor- 
dan biology  is  thoroughly  yet  conservatively  cul- 
tivated, has  to  say  with  regard  to  these  theories 
and  the  objective  evidence  for  them.  Professor 
Vernon  L.  Kellogg  in  his  "  Darwinism  To-day,"  * 
p.  18,  though  himself  an  evolutionist  and  a  Dar- 
winian, says:  "What  may  for  the  moment  detain 
us,  however,  is  a  reference  to  the  curiously  almost 
completely  subjective  character  of  the  evidence 
for  both  the  theory  of  descent  and  natural  selec- 
tion. Biology  has  been  until  now  a  science  of  ob- 
servation; it  is  beginning  to  be  one  of  observation 
plus  experiment.  The  evidence  for  its  principal 
theories  might  be  expected  to  be  thoroughly  ob- 
jective in  character;  to  be  of  the  nature  of  posi- 
tive, observed  and  perhaps  experimentally  proved, 
facts.  How  is  it  actually?  Speaking  by  and 
large,  we  only  tell  the  general  truth  when  we  de- 
clare that  no  indubitable  cases  of  species  forming 
or  transforming ,  that  is  of  descent,  have  been  ob- 
served; and  that  no  recognized  case  of  natural 
selection  really  selecting  has  been  observed.  I 
hasten  to  repeat  the  names  of  the  Ancon  sheep, 
the  Paraguay  cattle,  the  Porto  Santo  rabbit,  the 
Artemias  of  Schmankewitch  and  the  de  Vriesian 

*  Henry  Holt  and  Co.,  New  York,  1907. 


^  EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW  17 

evening  primroses  to  show  that  I  know  my  list 
of  classic  possible  exceptions  to  this  denial  of  ob- 
served species  forming,  and  to  refer  to  Weldon's 
broad-and-narrow  fronted  crabs  as  a  case  of  what 
may  be  an  obsei'vation  of  selection  at  work.  But 
such  a  list,  even  if  it  could  be  extended  to  a  score, 
or  to  a  hundred,  of  cases,  is  ludicrous  as  objective 
proof  of  that  descent  and  selection,  under  whose 
domination  the  forming  of  millions  of  species  is 
supposed  to  have  occurred"      (Italics  mine.) 

Mr.  Kellogg,  as  might  be  expected  from  this, 
objects  very  much  to  the  application  that  has  been 
so  heedlessly  made  of  certain  supposed  principles 
of  evolution  to  pedagogy.  In  practically  every 
science  to  which  Darwinian  principles  have  been 
applied  it  is  the  weakest  of  the  principles  that  have 
been  appealed  to  as  the  foundation  for  presumedly 
new  developments  in  the  particular  science.  With 
regard  to  the  so-called  science  of  education  Pro- 
fessor Kellogg  says: 

"  In  Pedagogy  it  is  also  the  theory  of  descent 
rather  than  the  selection  theory  which  has  been 
drawn  on  for  some  rather  remarkable  develop- 
ments in  child  study  and  instruction.  Unfortu- 
nately it  is  on  that  weakest  of  the  three  founda- 
tion pillars  of  descent,  namely  the  science  of  em- 
bryology with  its  Miillerian-Haeckelian  capit- 
ulation theory  or  biogenetic  law,  that  the  child- 
study  pedagogues  have  builded.  The  species  re- 
capitulates in  the  ontogeny  (development)  of  each 
of   its    individuals    the    course    or    history    of   its 


18         EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW 

phylogeny  (descent  or  evolution).  Hence  the 
child  corresponds  in  different  periods  of  its  de- 
velopment to  the  phyletic  stages  in  the  descent 
of  man.  As  the  child  is  fortunately  well  by  its 
fish,  dog  and  monkey  stages  before  it  comes  into 
the  care  of  the  pedagogue,  he  has  to  concern  him- 
self only  with  safe  progress  through  the  various 
stages  of  prehistoric  and  barbarous  man.  Detect 
the  precise  phyletic  stage  cave-man,  stone-age 
man,  hunter  and  roamer,  pastoral  man,  agricul- 
turalist, and  treat  with  the  little  barbarian  accord- 
ingly! What  simplicity!  Only  one  trouble  here 
for  the  pedagogue;  the  recapitulation  theory  is 
mostly  wrong  and  what  is  right  in  it  is  mostly 
so  covered  up  by  the  wrong  part,  that  few  bi- 
ologists longer  have  any  confidence  in  discovering 
the  right.  What,  then,  of  our  generalizing  friends, 
the  pedagogues?" 

It  is  in  educational  matters,  above  all,  then,  that 
we  must  be  careful  about  assumptions  with  regard 
to  evolution  and  supposed  inevitable  progress  be- 
cause we  must,  forsooth,  be  taking  advantage  of 
the  accumulated  experience  of  previous  genera- 
tions. There  is  no  inevitability  about  progress  in 
any  line.  The  attainment  of  any  generation  de- 
pends absolutely  on  what  that  generation  tries  to 
do,  the  ideals  that  it  has  and  the  fidelity  with  which 
it  sets  itself  to  work.  We  can  make  just  as 
egregious  mistakes,  and  we  have  made  them,  as 
any  generation  of  the  past.  We  can  foster  delu- 
sions with  regard  to  our  all-knowingness  just  as 


EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW  19 

many  another  foolish  people  before  us  have  done, 
and  our  one  hope  of  real  accomplishment  for  our- 
selves and  our  generation  is  to  choose  our  pur- 
poses carefully  and  then  set  about  their  accom- 
plishment with  strenuous  effort.  The  lessons  of 
the  past  in  history  are  extremely  precious  not  only 
because  they  show  us  where  others  made  mistakes 
but  also  because  they  show  us  the  successes  of  the 
past.  The  better  we  know  these,  the  deeper  our 
admiration  for  them,  the  better  the  outlook  for 
ourselves  and  our  accomplishment.  This  is  the 
ideal  that  I  would  like  to  emphasize  in  this 
series  of  lectures  and  addresses  and  in  this,  far 
from  there  being  any  pessimism,  there  is,  as  it 
seems  to  me,  the  highest  optimism.  Any  genera- 
tion that  wants  to  can  do  well,  but  it  must  want 
to  do  efficaciously. 

Any  one  who  thinks  that  education,  in  the  sense 
of  training  of  character  or  advice  with  regard 
to  practical,  every-day  life,  has  evoluted  in  the 
course  of  time,  should  read  this  little  book  that 
I  bring  to  you  this  evening.  Indeed,  it  is  as  the 
first  chapter  in  the  history  of  education  that  it 
finds  its  most  valuable  place  in  literature.  This 
teacher  of  the  old-time,  who  had  his  boy's  best 
interest  at  heart,  not  only  knew  what  to  say  but 
how  to  say  it  so  as  to  attract  a  young  man's  atten- 
tion. Of  course  it  is  probable  that,  even  with  all 
this  good  advice,  the  young  man  went  his  way  in 
his  own  fashion;  for  that  is  ever  the  mode  of  the 
young.     But,  so  far  as  the  experience  of  another 


20  EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW 

could  supply  for  that  personal  experience  which 
every  human  being  craves,  and  will  have,  no  mat- 
ter what  the  cost,  surely  this  oldest  book  in  the 
world  supplies  the  best  possible  material.  As 
literature,  it  has  a  finish  that  is  quite  surprising. 
Art  is  said  to  be  the  elimination  of  the  superfluous. 
Surely,  then,  this  is  artful,  in  the  best  sense  of 
that  word,  to  a  supreme  degree.  It  is  surprising 
how  few  repetitions  there  are,  how  few  tergiversa- 
tions, how  few  unnecessary  words;  and  yet  the 
style  is  not  so  austere  as  to  be  dry  and  lacking  in 
human  interest. 

Probably  the  most  interesting  feature  of  the 
book  is  the  fact  that  in  it  God  is  always  spoken 
of  in  the  singular.  It  is  not  the  "  gods  "  who 
help  men,  who  punish  them,  who  command  and 
must  be  obeyed,  whose  providence  is  so  wonderful, 
but  it  is  always  "  God."  The  latest  editor,*  Mr. 
Battiscombe  G.  Gunn,  in  his  version  always  in- 
serts the  definite  article  before  the  word  God 
because,  he  says,  in  different  places  there  were 
'different  local  gods,  and  the  idea  of  the  writer  was 
to  emphasize  the  fact  that  the  god  of  any  par- 
ticular locality  would  act  as  he  declared  in  his  in- 
structions. There  are  many  distinguished  Egyp- 
tologists, however,  who  insist  that  the  expression 
"  the  God,"  which  occurs  not  only  in  this  but  in 
many   other  very  early   Egj^ptian  writings,   is   a 

* "  The  Instructions  of  Ptah  Hotep."  Translated  from  the 
Egyptian,  with  an  Introduction  and  an  Appendix,  by  Battiscombe  G. 
Gunn.     E.  P.  Button  &  Co.     Wisdom  of  the  East  Series,  1909. 


EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW  21 

monotheistic  deity  whose  name  is  above  all  names, 
and  transcends  all  the  power  of  humanity  to  name 
him,  and  hence  is  spoken  of  always  without  a 
name  but  with  the  definite  article. 

It  is  curious  indeed  to  find  that  the  very  first 
bit  of  instruction  given  to  his.  son  by  this  wise 
father  is,  not  to  be  conceited  about  what  he  knows. 
How  striking  the  expression  of  his  first  sentence 
of  this  oldest  book:  "Be  not  proud  because  thou 
art  learned."  And  the  second  is  like  unto  the 
first:  "But  discourse  with  the  ignorant  man  as 
with  the  sage."  And  then  at  the  end  of  this  very 
first  paragraph  comes  the  first  figure  of  speech  in 
human  literature  that  has  been  preserved  for  us. 
It  is  as  beautiful  in  its  simplicity  and  illuminating 
quality  as  any  of  the  subsequent  time.  "  Fair 
speech"  (by  which  is  meant  evidently  kindly 
speech  toward  those  who  know  less  than  we  do) 
"is  more  rare  than  the  emerald  that  is  found  by 
slave  maidens  on  the  pebbles."  Then  there  comes 
a  series  of  directions  as  to  how  the  young  man 
should  treat  his  superiors,  his  equals  and  his  in- 
feriors. If  in  argument  he  is  worsted  by  some 
one  who  knows  more  than  himself,  he  is  cautioned, 
"  Be  not  angry."  If  some  one  talks  nonsense, 
"  Correct  him."  If  an  ignorant  man  insists  on 
arguing,  "Be  not  scornful  with  him,  but  let 
him  alone;  then  shall  he  confound  himself";  for 
"it  is  shameful  to  confuse  a  mean  mind." 

The  advice  may  be  summed  up.  Do  not  argue 
with  your  superiors,  it  does  no  good;  nor  with 


22  EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW 

your  equals,  state  j^our  case  and  let  it  go;  but 
above  all,  not  with  your  inferiors;  let  them  talk 
and  they  wi]l  make  fools  of  themselves. 

Kindness  is  always  insisted  on  as  the  quality 
most  indispensable  to  a  man.  "  Live  therefore," 
says  the  father,  "  in  the  house  of  kindliness,  and 
men  shall  come  and  give  gifts  of  themselves." 
There  are  lessons  in  politeness  as  well  as  in  kind- 
liness. For  instance:  "  If  thou  be  among  the 
guests  of  a  great  man,  pierce  him  not  with  many 
glances.  It  is  abhorred  of  the  soul  to  stare  at  him. 
Speak  not  till  he  address  thee.  Speak  when  he 
questioneth  thee;  so  shalt  thou  be  good  in  his 
opinion."  Again,  he  wants  his  son  not  to  eat  the 
bread  of  idleness:  "Fill  not  thy  mouth  at  thy 
neighbor's  table."  He  insists  much  on  the  lesson 
that  God  helps  those  who  help  themselves.  "  Be- 
hold," he  says,  "  riches  come  not  of  themselves.  It 
is  their  rule  to  come  to  him  that  actively  desires. 
If  he  bestir  him  and  collect  them  himself,  God 
shall  make  him  prosperous;  but  He  shall  punish 
him  if  he  be  slothful."  On  the  other  hand,  the 
gaining  of  riches  for  riches'  sake  is  not  worth  the 
while.  "  When  riches  are  gained,  follow  the  heart ; 
for  riches  are  of  no  avail  if  one  be  weary."  As 
much  as  to  say,  after  having  gained  a  competency, 
do  not  spend  further  time  in  amassing  wealth,  but 
enjoy  in  a  reasonable  way  that  which  has  been 
obtained. 

There  are  certain  things,  however,  that  a  man 
should  not  follow;  they  are  unworthy  of  his  na- 


EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW  23 

ture  as  a  man.  "  As  to  the  man  whose  heart 
obeyeth  his  belly,  he  causeth  disgust  in  place  of 
love.  His  heart  is  wretched,  his  body  is  gross.  He 
is  insolent  toward  those  endowed  by  God.  He 
that  obeyeth  his  belty  hath  an  enemy."  While 
the  old  man  warns  his  son  against  gluttony  and 
against  sloth,  he  has  much  to  say  with  regard  to 
covetousness :  "If  thou  desire  that  thine  actions 
may  be  good,  save  thyself  from  all  malice,  and 
beware  of  the  quality  of  covetousness,  which  is  a 
grievous  inner  malady."  This  expression  is  ren- 
dered still  more  striking  by  what  is  added  to  it; 
for  the  father  insists  that  it  is  particularly  rela- 
tives-in-law  who  quarrel  over  money.  "  Covetous- 
ness setteth  at  variance  fathers-in-law  and  the 
kinsmen  of  the  daughter-in-law.  It  sundereth  the 
wife  and  the  husband;  it  gathereth  unto  itself  all 
evils.  It  is  the  girdle  of  all  wickedness."  It 
needed  only  the  next  sentence  to  make  these  ex- 
pressions supremely  modern:  "  Be  not  covetous  as 
touching  shares,  in  seizing  that  which  is  not  thine 
own  property." 

The  God  of  this  earliest  book  that  we  have 
from  the  hand  of  man  has  nearly  all  the  inter- 
esting and  important  qualities  that  we  refer  to  the 
Deity.  He  is  looked  up  to  as  the  giver  of  all  good 
things.  He  loves  his  creation,  and  above  all  loves 
man,  and  observes  men's  actions  very  carefully, 
and  rewards  or  punishes  them  according  to  their 
deserts.  He  desires  men  to  be  fruitful,  and  to 
multiply  upon  the  earth  for  their  own  good  and 


24.         EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW 

for  his  glory.  Nothing  unworthy  of  the  Deity,  as 
he  is  known  by  the  most  educated  people,  is  at- 
tributed to  this  God,  who  transcends  a  personal 
name.  There  is  an  utter  disregard  of  all  trivial 
mythology  and  of  all  mysterious  riddles,  though 
these  trimmings  of  truth  are  to  be  found  con- 
stantly in  other  Egyptian  works  of  later  date. 
Indeed,  the  picture  of  God  is  as  striking  a  pres- 
entation of  the  fatherliness  and  the  providence  of 
the  Almighty  and  of  most  of  the  lovable  char- 
acteristis  of  the  Deity  as  there  is  to  be  found  any- 
where in  literature  until  the  coming  of  the 
Saviour. 

One  might  think  that  after  having  warned  his 
son  about  most  of  the  Seven  Deadly  Sins  as  we 
know  them — pride,  covetousness,  gluttony,  envy, 
sloth  and  anger, — at  least  we  should  not  find  lust 
touched  on  in  the  modern  way.  There  is,  how- 
ever, in  this  matter  an  extremely  chaste  bit  of 
advice  that  sums  up  the  whole  situation  as  well  as 
a  father  can  tell  his  son.  The  writer  says:  "No 
place  prospereth  wherein  lust  is  allowed  to  work 
its  way.  A  thousand  men  have  been  ruined  for 
the  pleasure  of  a  little  time  short  as  a  dream. 
Even  death  is  reached  thereby.  It  is  a  wretched 
thing.  As  for  the  lustful  liver,  every  one 
leaveth  him  for  what  he  doeth;  he  is  avoided.  If 
his  desires  be  not  gratified,  he  regardeth  no  laws." 

The  father  tells  his  son,  straightforwardly  and 
emphatically,  that  indulgence  in  this  vice  inevi- 
tably leads  to  loss  of  friends,  of  health,  of  every- 


EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW         25 

thing  that  the  world  holds  good;  and  that  once  a 
man  has  started  down  this  path  he  has  no  regard 
for  law  or  order  or  decency  or  self-respect.  This 
eighteenth  paragraph  on  a  thorny  subject  is 
probabl}"  one  of  the  most  wonderful  passages  in 
this  advice  of  a  father  to  his  son.  Fathers  of  the 
modern  time  ask  what  shall  they  say  to  their 
boys.  Here  is  something  to  tell  them  that  does  not 
excite  pruriency,  that  does  set  the  full  state  of  the 
case  before  them  and  represents  probably  all  that 
can  be  said  with  assurance  and  safety. 

In  recent  years  we  have  heard  much  of  moral 
and  social  prophylaxis  and  the  necessity  for  giv- 
ing precious  information  with  regard  to  this  sub- 
ject that  may  prove  helpful  to  young  people. 
Most  people  are  sure  to  think  that  this  is  the 
first  time  in  the  history  of  the  race  that  there 
has  been  an  awakening  to  the  necessity  for  this. 
Of  course  there  is  no  doubt  that  owing  to  de- 
layed marriages  and  unfortunate  social  conditions 
in  our  large  cities  we  have  more  need  of  it  than 
past  generations,  yet  here  in  this  old  schoolbook 
from  Egypt  we  have  very  definite  and  verj'^  wise 
teaching  in  the  matter.  A  physician  is  prone  to 
wonder  what  did  the  old  man  mean  by  "  a  thou- 
sand men  have  been  ruined  for  the  pleasure  of  a 
little  time  short  as  a  dream.  Even  death  is 
reached  thereby."  Is  it  possible  that  he  knew 
something  of  the  physical,  or  let  us  rather  say,  the 
pathological  dangers  of  the  vice?  In  the  discus- 
sion of  the  pictures  of  old-time  surgery  in  The 


26         EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW 

Journal  of  the  American  Medical  Association  I 
suggested  that  these  generations  seem  to  have 
known  more  about  this  phase  of  pathology  than 
we  are  inehned  to  admit. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  father  emphatically 
warns  his  son  that  his  happiness  will  depend  on 
loving  his  wife  and  earing  for  her  to  the  best  of 
his  ability;  though  some  of  the  details  of  that  ad- 
vice are  so  naively  modern  in  their  expression  that 
it  seems  almost  impossible  to  believe  that  they 
should  have  been  spoken  nearly  six  thousand  years 
ago.  He  says:  "  If  thou  wouldst  be  wise,  provide 
for  thine  house,  and  love  thy  wife.  Give  her  what 
she  wants  to  eat,  get  her  what  she  wants  to  wear 
[literally,  fill  her  stomach,  clothe  her  back]. 
Gladden  her  heart  during  thy  lifetime,  for  she 
is  an  estate  profitable  unto  its  lord.  Be  not 
harsh,  for  gentleness  mastereth  her  more  than 
strength." 

There  is  a  variant  translation  of  this  passage 
quoted  in  Maspero's  "  The  Dawn  of  Civiliza- 
tion," which  brings  out  even  more  clearly  the  ideas 
that  seem  most  modern,  and  which  makes  it  very 
sure  that  it  is  not  the  translator  who  has  found 
in  vague  old  expressions  thoughts  that,  when  put 
into  modern  words,  have  modernized  old  ideas. 
Maspero  reads:  "  If  thou  art  wise,  thou  wilt  go 
up  into  thine  house  and  love  thy  wife  at  home; 
thou  wilt  give  her  abundance  of  food;  thou  wilt 
clothe  her  back  with  garments;  all  that  covers  her 
limbs,  her  perfumes,  are  the  joy  of  her  life.     As 


EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW  27 

long  as  thou  lookest  to  this,  she  is  as  a  profitable 
field  to  her  lord  [master]." 

The  old  gentleman's  idea  evidently  was  that, 
looked  at  merely  from  a  material  standpoint,  it 
was  worth  a  man's  while  to  spend  as  much  time 
caring  for  his  wife  as  for  his  estate.  She  meant 
just  as  much  for  his  happiness  in  the  end  and 
might  mean  probably  more  for  his  unhappiness. 
It  is  a  very  practical  way  of  looking  at  the  sub- 
ject and  perhaps  the  romancists  might  think  it 
sordid.  It  must  not  be  forgotten,  however,  that 
this  is  only  the  secondary  motive  suggested.  At 
the  beginning  he  commands  him  to  love  his  wife 
for  her  own  sake,  and  then,  after  suggesting  the 
material  benefit  that  comes  from  caring  for  her, 
he  says  that  "  gentleness  mastereth  her  more  than 
strength." 

Immediately  after  this  valuable  advice'  with  re- 
gard to  the  care  of  the  principal  member  of  his 
household  the  old  man  turns  to  the  question  of 
the  care  of  his  servants.  We  are  surely  prone  to 
think  that  the  servant  problem  at  least  is  a  new 
development  in  this  little  world  of  ours.  Many 
literary  works  serve  to  foster  the  impression  that 
in  the  old  days  servants  were  easy  to  obtain,  that 
they  were  always  respectful,  that  they  could  read- 
ily be  managed  and  life  with  them  was,  if  not  one 
sweet  song,  at  least  a  very  smooth  course.  Men, 
however,  have  always  been  men,  and  women  and 
even  servants  have  always  had  minds  of  their  own, 
and  strange  as  it  may  seem  to  us  there  has  always 


28  EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW 

been  a  servant  problem  and  there  was  one  in 
Egypt  5,500  years  ago. 

Ptah  Hotep  said:  "  Satisfy  thine  hired  servants 
out  of  such  things  as  thou  hast;  it  is  the  duty  of 
one  that  hath  been  favored  of  God.  In  sooth,  it 
is  hard  to  satisfy  hired  servants.  For  one  saith, 
'he  is  a  lavish  person ;  one  knoweth  not  that 
which  may  come  from  him.'  But  on  the  morrow 
he  thinketh,  '  he  is  a  person  of  exactitude  (parsi- 
mony), content  therein.'  And  when  favors  have 
been  shown  unto  servants,  they  say  '  we  go' 
(Italics  mine.)  Peace  dwelleth  not  in  that  town 
wherein  dwell  servants  that  are  wretched." 

A  difficult  problem;  presents  will  not  solve  it 
but  only  complicate  it,  exact  justice  is  necessary, 
but  the  peace  that  follows  is  worth  the  trouble 
it  entails.  The  principle  would  be  valuable  in 
many  a  squabble  of  corporate  employer  and  hosts 
of  servants  in  the  modern  time. 

For  domestic  happiness,  it  needed  only  the 
advice  given  a  little  later  in  this  instruction:  "  Let 
thy  face  be  bright  what  time  thou  livest.  Bread 
is  to  be  shared.  He  that  is  grasping  in  enter- 
tainment himself  shall  have  an  empty  belly.  He 
that  causeth  strife  cometh  himself  to  sorrow. 
Take  not  such  a  one  for  thy  companion.  It  is 
a  man's  kindly  acts  that  are  remembered  of  him 
in  the  years  after  his  life." 

There  is  one  phase  of  life  in  which  Ptah  Hotep 
differs  entirely  from  the  present  generation, — at 
least  if  we  are  to  judge  the  present  generation 


EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW         29 

from  its  results  in  this  matter.  Of  course  there 
are  many  of  us  who  consider  that,  in  spite  of  six 
thousand  years  of  distance  in  time,  the  old  Egyp- 
tian prime  minister  is  far  ahead  of  our  contem- 
poraries in  this  important  subject.  He  thought 
that  obedience  was  the  most  important  thing  in 
life.  For  him  independence  of  spirit,  in  a  young 
person  particularly,  was  an  abomination.  In  spite 
of  the  tendency  to  loquacity  and  to  repeat  itself, 
often  said  to  be  so  characteristic  of  old  age,  the 
father,  who  in  all  his  instructions  has  never  sinned 
against  this  literary  canon,  almost  seems  to  do 
so  when  it  comes  to  the  question  of  obedience. 
Over  and  over  again  he  insists  that  obedience  is  the 
one  quality  that  must  characterize  a  man  if  he  is 
to  get  on  in  life,  and  if  he  is  to  secure  happiness, 
and  have  a  happy  generation  of  his  own  group 
around  him.  The  sentences  read  more  like  a 
Kempis  or  some  mediseval  writer  on  spirituality, 
and  seem  meant  for  monks  under  obedience  rather 
than  for  a  young  man  of  the  world,  the  son  of  a 
prime  minister,  just  about  to  enter  on  his  life 
work  in  business  and  politics.  Two  of  the  para- 
graphs are  well  worth  quoting  here: 

"  A  splendid  thing  is  the  obedience  of  an  obedi- 
ent son;  he  cometh  in  and  listeneth  obediently. 
Excellent  in  hearing,  excellent  in  speaking,  is 
every  man  that  obeyeth  what  is  noble.  The 
obedience  of  an  obeyer  is  a  noble  thing.  Obedi- 
ence is  better  than  all  things  that  are;  it  maketh 
good  will.    How  good  it  is  that  a  son  should  take 


30  EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW 

that  from  his  father  by  which  he  hath  reached 
old  age  [obedience] !  That  which  is  desiredNby  the 
God  is  obedience;  disobedience  is  abhorred  of  the 
God.  Verily,  it  is  the  heart  that  maketh  its  mas- 
ter to  obey  or  to  disobey;  for  the  safe-and-sound 
life  of  a  man  is  his  heart.  It  is  the  obedient  man 
that  obeyeth  what  is  said;  he  that  loveth  to  obey, 
the  same  shall  carry  out  commands.  He  that 
obeyeth  becometh  one  obeyed.  It  is  good  indeed 
when  a  son  obeyeth  his  father;  and  he  (his  father) 
that  hath  spoken  hath  great  joy  of  it.  Such  a 
son  shall  be  mild  as  a  master,  and  he  that  heareth 
him  shall  obey  him  that  hath  spoken.  He  shall  be 
comely  in  body  and  honored  by  his  father.  His 
memory  shall  be  in  the  mouths  of  the  living,  those 
upon  earth,  as  long  as  they  exist. 

"  As  for  the  fool,  devoid  of  obedience,  he 
doeth  nothing.  Knowledge  he  regardeth  as  igno- 
rance, profitable  things  as  hurtful  things.  He 
doeth  all  kind  of  errors,  so  that  he  is  rebuked 
therefor  every  day.  He  liveth  in  death  therewith. 
It  is  his  food.  At  chattering  speech  he  marvelleth, 
as  at  the  wisdom  of  princes,  living  in  death  every 
day.  He  is  shunned  because  of  his  misfortunes, 
by  reason  of  the  multitude  of  afflictions  that 
Cometh  upon  him  every  day." 

Of  one  thing  the  old  prime  minister  was  espe- 
cially sure.  It  was  that  employment  at  no  single 
occupation,  no  matter  what  it  was  or  how  inter- 
esting soever  it  might  be,  could  satisfy  a  man 
or  even  keep  him  in  good  health.    He  felt,  prob- 


EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW         31 

ably  by  experience,  tlie  necessity  for  diversity  of 
mind  and  of  occupation,  if  there  was  to  be  any 
happiness  or  am^  real  success  in  life.  He  has  a 
quiet  way  of  putting  it,  but  he  says,  as  confi- 
dently as  the  most  modern  of  pedagogues,  that 
all  work  and  no  play  makes  Jack  a  dull  boy,  and 
all  play  and  no  work  makes  it  impossible  for 
Jack  to  get  on.  But  a  proper  mixture  of  both 
makes  life  livable;  and  if  a  man  has  only  the 
work  that  he  cares  for,  and  can  get  some  of  his 
pleasure  in  life  out  of  his  work,  then  is  all  well. 
"  One  that  reckoneth  accounts  all  the  day  passeth 
not  an  happy  moment.  One  that  gladdeneth  his 
heart  all  the  day  provideth  not  for  his  house. 
The  bowman  hitteth  the  mark,  as  the  steersman 
reacheth  land,  by  diversity  of  aim.  He  that 
obeyeth  his  heart  shall  command." 

There  are  some  conclusions  in  the  philosophy 
of  life  that  we  are  very  much  inclined  to  think 
are  the  products  of  modern  practical  wisdom,  and 
it  is  rather  surprising  to  find  them  stated  plainly 
in  this  old-time  advice  of  the  father  to  his  boy. 
If  there  is  one  idea  more  than  another  that  we 
are  confident  is  modern,  and  are  almost  sure  to 
attribute  to  the  social  development  of  our  own 
generation,  it  is  that  riches  do  not  belong  to  the 
man  who  makes  them  to  be  used  for  his  own  pur- 
pose alone,  but  their  possession  is  justified  only 
if  he  uses  them  for  the  benefit  of  the  community. 
This  is  so  up-to-date  an  idea  indeed  that  it  is 
startling  to  find  it  expressed  in  all  its  complete- 


32  EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW 

ness  in  this  oldest  of  books.  Ptah  Hotep  said: 
"  If  thou  be  great  after  being  of  no  account, 
and  hast  gotten  riches  after  poverty,  being  fore- 
most in  these  in  the  city,  and  hast  knowledge  con- 
cerning useful  matters  so  that  promotion  is  come 
unto  thee,  then  swathe  not  thine  heart  in  thine 
hoard,  for  thou  art  become  the  steward  of  the 
endowments  [of  God].  Thou  art  not  the  last; 
another  shall  be  thine  equal,  and  to  him  shall  come 
the  like  [fortune  and  station]." 

After  all  this  it  may  be  necessary  to  trace  the 
pedigree  of  the  book,  since  it  might  seem  to  be 
possible  that  it  was  a  modern  invention.  The 
original  of  it  is  the  so-called  "  Prisse  Papyrus," 
which  is  well  known  by  name  to  all  students  of 
archaeology  and  especially  of  Egyptology,  and  the 
contents  of  which  are  familiar  to  all  who  are  ac- 
quainted with  Egyptian  history  and  literature.  It 
appears  to  have  been  found  at  Thebes,  but  the 
exact  place  is  not  known.  M.  Prisse  d' Avenues, 
the  well-known  French  archaeologist  after  whom 
it  is  named,  is  said  to  have  bought  it  from  one 
of  the  Egyptian  native  workmen,  or  fellahin, 
whom  he  had  hired  to  make  excavations  in  the 
tombs  of  Thebes.  Egyptologists  generally  have 
accepted  the  idea  that  it  was  actually  taken  by 
this  workman  from  the  tomb  of  one  of  the  Kings 
Entef,  who  were  of  the  Eleventh  D3^nasty  and 
reigned  about  3000  B.C.  This  is  not  certain,  how- 
ever. After  publishing  a  translation  in  1847,  M. 
Prisse    presented    the    precious    papyrus    to    the 


EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW  33 

Bibliotheque  Royale  (now  Nationale).  There  it 
may  still  be  seen.  Spread  out  flat,  it  measures 
about  twenty-four  feet  in  length  and  six  inches  in 
width.  There  are  about  eighteen  pages  of  clear 
red  and  black  writing  in  the  Hieratic  character. 

The  first  part  of  this  manuscript  is  a  portion 
of  another  book,  the  so-called  "  Instructions  of 
Ke'gemni."  *  This  is,  however,  only  a  short  frag- 
ment, though  probably  of  even  older  date  than  the 
"  Instructions  of  Ptah  Hotep."  This  work  we 
have  in  its  entirety.  Doubtless  its  preservation 
was  due  to  the  fact  that  many  copies  of  it  had 
been  made,  though  only  two  have  come  down 
to  us. 

There  is  a  second  manuscript  of  the  "  In- 
structions of  Ptah  Hotep," — or  the  "  Proverbs  of 
Phtahhotpu,"  as  the  book  is  called  by  Maspero. 
This  was  discovered  not  long  ago  in  the  British 
Museum,  by  Mr.  Griffith;  and,  while  it  is  not  so 
complete  as  the  French  copy,  there  is  such  an 
agreement  between  the  two  manuscripts  that  there 
is  no  doubt  about  the  authenticity  of  the  book 
and  of  the  fact  that  it  represents  the  oldest  book 
in  the  world. 

Its  date  would  be  about  3650  B.C.  if  we  were 

*  These  Egyptian  names  are  spelled  diiferently  by  diiferent  modern 
scholars,  according  to  their  idea  of  the  value  of  certain  sounds  of  the 
older  language  as  they  should  be  expressed  in  the  modern  tongue  to 
which  they  are  most  familiar.  Many  English  scholars  spell  this  as  I 
have  done,  Ke'gemni.  Maspero,  however,  and  most  of  the  French 
scholars,  spell  it  Qaqimni.  Maspero  prefers  the  form  Phtah-HotpA 
to  that  of  Ptah  Hotep,  which  has  been  adopted  by  English  scholars. 


34  EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW 

to  follow, — as  does  the  translator  of  the  most 
easily  procurable  English  edition,  Mr.  Giinn, — 
the  chronology  of  Flinders  Petrie.  Recent  ad- 
vances in  our  knowledge  of  Egyptology,  how- 
ever, have  brought  thie  dates  nearer  to  us  than 
they  were  placed  before.  Such  men  as  Breasted 
of  Chicago,  and  Maspero,  would  probably  take 
from  three  hundred  to  five  hundred  years  from 
this  date.  There  is  a  definite  tendency  in  all 
the  histories  to  bring  dates  much  nearer  to  the 
present  than  before.  For  a  time,  the  older  one 
could  place  a  date  the  more  scholarly  seemed  to  be 
the  appeal  of  such  an  opinion.  Now  the  tendency 
is  all  the  other  way.  Even  the  latest  date  that  can 
be  given  for  Ptah  Hotep,  or  Phtahhotpu,  would 
still  make  his  little  book  the  oldest  book  in  the 
world,  however. 

Fortunately  for  us  the  manuscripts  of  the  in- 
structions of  Ptah  Hotep  that  have  come  down  to 
us  are  in  much  better  condition  than  those  of  most 
of  the  other  instructions  of  similar  kinds  formerly 
used  in  the  schools  that  have  been  preserved.  In 
some  of  these  there  are  a  great  many  errors  of 
writing,  spelling  and  grammar  with  the  correc- 
tions of  the  master  above  in  a  different-colored  ink. 
Verily,  education  has  not  changed  much  in  spite 
of  six  millenniums,  or  very  nearly  so,  of  sup- 
posed progress  since  these  were  written,  for  the 
whole  process  is  as  familiar  as  it  can  be.  As  Mr. 
Battiscombe  Gunn  says  in  his  Introduction  to 
his  edition  "  a  schoolboy's  scrawl  over  3,000  years 


EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW  35 

old  is  no  easy  thing  to  translate."  We  would 
seem,  however,  to  have  been  blessed  in  the  preser- 
vation of  this  oldest  book  in  the  world,  either  of 
the  original  copies  set  by  the  masters  or  of  such 
copies  as  were  made  by  advanced  students.  The 
series  of  lucky  chances  that  have  combined  to  bring 
to  us,  in  the  comparatively  perfect  form  in  which 
it  exists,  this  oldest  book  in  the  world  is  interest- 
ing to  contemplate.  Without  them  we  would  have 
no  idea  of  how  closely  the  first  people  of  whom 
we  have  any  definite  records  in  history  resembled 
us  in  every  essential  quality  of  humanity,  even 
to  the  ways  and  modes  by  which  they  tried  to  lift 
humanity  out  of  the  barbaric  selfishness  inherent 
in  it  to  what  is  higher  and  nobler  in  its  nature. 

With  this  surprising  resurrection  of  our  school- 
teaching  methods  from  the  past  it  is  interesting 
to  study  other  phases  of  the  education  of  these 
early  times,  and  at  the  same  time  to  note  the 
accomplishments  of  the  men,  of  the  period,  their 
tastes,  the  state  of  their  culture  as  regards  the 
arts  and  crafts  and  personal  adornment  and  the 
decoration  of  their  houses  and  buildings  of  vari- 
ous kinds.  Flinders  Petrie,  the  distinguished 
English  Egyptologist,  in  an  article  on  "  The  Ro- 
mance of  Early  Civilization,"  printed  recently  in 
The  Independent  (New  York),  said: 

"  We  have  now  before  us  a  view  of  the  powers 
of  man  at  the  earliest  point  to  which  we  can  trace 
written  historj'^,  and  what  strikes  us  most  is  how 
very  little  his  nature  or  abilities  have  changed  in 


36         EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW 

seven  thousand  years;  what  he  admired  we  ad- 
mire; what  were  his  Hmits  in  fine  handiwork  are 
also  ours.  We  may  have  a  wider  outlook,  a 
greater  understanding  of  things,  our  interests  may 
have  extended  in  this  interval ;  but  as  far  as  human 
nature  and  tastes  go,  man  is  essentially  unchanged 
in   this   interval." 

We  have  enough  of  the  products  of  the  arts  and 
crafts  of  these  early  Egyptian  generations  to  show 
us  that  there  must  have  been  no  inconsiderable 
training  of  the  men  of  this  time  in  the  making 
of  beautiful  art  objects.  For  instance,  the  in- 
terior decoration  of  their  tombs  shows  us  men 
skilled  as  designers,  clever  in  the  use  of  colors, 
with  a  rather  extensive  knowledge  of  pigments 
and  with  a  definite  tendency  not  to  repeat  de- 
signs but  to  create  new  ones.  Most  of  the  diap- 
ered designs  of  modern  interior  decorations  were 
original  with  the  Egyptians,  and  some  of  those 
found  in  the  tombs  uncovered  in  recent  years  have 
been  adopted  and  adapted  bj'^  modern  designers. 
It  is  in  the  matter  of  jewelry  particularly  that  the 
ability  and  the  training  of  the  old  Egyptian  work- 
men are  most  evident.  It  would  be  quite  incredible 
to  think  that  these  workmen  developed  their  artis- 
tic craftsmanship  without  training,  and  therefore 
there  was  at  least  the  germ  of  a  technical  school 
or  set  of  schools  in  oldest  Egypt.  It  would  be 
quite  impossible  to  believe  this  only  that  we  know 
so  much  more  about  other  features  of  Egyptian 
education  as  anticipations  of  our  own.     A  spe- 


EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW  37 

cial  word  about  their  jewelry  then,  because  it  il- 
lustrates a  definite  training  quite  different  from 
that  of  our  time,  will  not  be  out  of  place. 

Their  jewelry,  it  may  be  said  at  once,  is  in 
striking  contrast  with  what  we  call  jewelry  in  our 
time.  It  is  true  that  we  are  in  the  midst  of  one 
of  the  worst  periods  of  jewelry-making,  but  then 
we  are  so  prone  to  think  of  anything  very  modern 
as  representing  the  highest  evolution,  that  the  con- 
trast is  chastening  and  illuminating.  Mr.  Petrie 
has  insisted  on  the  beautiful  jewelry,  carved  pre- 
cious stones  and  gold  ornaments  of  the  very  early 
period  in  Egypt.  In  our  time  we  have  no  jewelry 
that  deserves  the  name.  I  doubt  whether  we  even 
know  the  real  definition  of  jewelry,  so  I  venture 
to  repeat  it.  Jewels  are  precious  stones  them- 
selves of  value,  usually  of  a  high  degree  of  hard- 
ness so  that  they  do  not  deteriorate  with  time  or 
wear,  to  which  a  greatly  enhanced  value  is  added 
by  the  handiwork  of  man.  Jewels  are  made  by 
artistic  carving  and  cutting  so  that  besides  their 
precious  quality  as  beautiful  colored  stones,  they 
have  an  added  charm  and  interest  from  human 
workmanship.  We  wear  no  such  jewelry  in  our 
generation.  What  we  have  are  merely  precious 
stones.  These  by  an  artificial  rigging  of  the  mar- 
ket and  a  combination  of  the  great  commercial 
agencies  that  control  the  sale  of  diamonds  and 
other  precious  stones,  remain  very  expensive  in 
spite  of  their  comparative  abundance.  They  are 
worn    only    because    they    are    a    display    of    the 


38  EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW 

amount  of  money  that  a  person  can  afford  to 
spend  for  mere  ornaments. 

There  is  nothing  in  these  precious  stones  them- 
selves that  carries  an  appeal  to  the  educated 
mind.  It  is  true  that  they  are  pretty,  but  only 
with  the  prettiness  of  the  play  of  rainbow  colors 
that  delights  a  childish  or  uncultured  eye.  It  re- 
quires no  taste  to  like  them,  no  culture  to  appre- 
ciate them,  and  their  cost  alone  gives  them  value. 
This  is  so  true  that  those  who  possess  a  magnifi- 
cent parure  of  diamonds  often  also  have  an  imita- 
tion of  them  in  cheaper  stones  that  may  be  worn 
on  most  occasions.  The  danger  of  loss  or  the 
risk  of  robbery  is  so  great  that  it  has  seemed 
worth  while  to  have  this  imitation  made  in  many 
cases.  No  one  except  an  expert  will  recognize  the 
difference,  and  if  you  are  known  to  possess  the 
real  stones  it  will  of  course  be  supposed  that  you 
are  wearing  them.  What  gives  them  value  as  an 
adornment  in  the  eye  of  the  possessor,  and  pre- 
sumably also  of  the  onlookers,  is  the  fact  that  they 
must  have  cost  such  a  large  sum  of  money.  They 
are  a  vulgar  display  of  wealth.  They  are  typic- 
ally barbaric  and,  worn  in  the  profusion  now  so 
common,  carry  us  back  to  the  uncultured  peoples 
who  like  to  wear  gaudy  things.  The  taste  is 
perhaps  a  little  better,  but  the  essential  quality  of 
mind  that  dictates  the  wearing  of  heavy  brass  rings 
and  strings  of  beads  and  that  which  impels  to  the 
display  of  many  diamonds,  is  hard  to  differentiate. 

Artistic  objects  produce  a  sense  of  pleasure  in 


EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW  39 

the  beholder,  an  appreciation  of  the  beautiful 
handiwork  of  man.  Precious  stones  worn  as  is 
now  the  custom  produce  only  a  sense  of  envy.  Of 
course  envy  comes  onlj^  to  baser  minds,  but  it  is 
perfectly  clear  that  most  of  those  who  are  sup- 
posed to  be  affected  by  the  sight  of  diamonds  worn 
in  profusion  have  this  particular  quality  rather 
well  developed.  This  distinction  is  often  for- 
gotten. Personal  adornment  as  well  as  the  adorn- 
ment of  one's  house  should  be  in  order  to  give 
pleasure  to  others,  and  not  merely  a  display  of 
wealth  for  wealth's  sake  in  such  a  way  as  is  likely 
to  produce  envy.  The  old  Egyptians  made  their 
jewelry  with  the  true  artistic  sense.  Flinders 
Petrie  has  told  how  beautifully  they  carved  hard 
gems  of  various  kinds  and  how  the  remains  of 
these  show  us  a  people  of  good  taste,  even  though 
their  technique  in  the  manufacture  of  such  ob- 
jects may  have  left  something  to  be  desired.  In 
connection  with  this  oldest  of  books  it  is  im- 
portant to  recall  this,  for  it  shows  that  not  alone 
in  the  applied  wisdom  of  life  and  the  knowledge 
gained  from  personal  experience  were  these  Egyp- 
tians of  over  5,000  years  ago  brothers  and  sisters 
beyond  whose  wise  saws  we  have  not  advanced, 
but  also  in  the  realm  of  art  their  work  takes  its 
place  beside  what  is  best  in  the  modern  time. 

Some  may  be  inclined  to  say  that  while  the 
Egyptians  may,  as  indeed  we  must  admit  they 
did,  know  many  things  about  art  and  literature 
and  practical  wisdom,  yet  they  did  not  have  exact 


40  EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW 

knowledge.  Their  knowledge,  though  large  and 
liberal,  had  not  become  scientific.  This  will 
scarcely  be  maintained,  however,  by  any  one  who 
realizes  how  much  of  applied  science  there  was 
in  the  building  of  the  old  .temples  and  pyramids 
and  how  much  they  must  have  developed  mechan- 
ics, applied  and  theoretic,  in  order  to  accomplish 
the  tasks  they  thus  set  themselves.  Cantor,  the 
German  historian  of  mathematics,  acknowledged 
this  and  paid  a  worthy  tribute  to  the  old  Egyp- 
tians' development  of  mathematics,  pure  and 
applied,  in  discussing  the  expression  that  had  been 
used  by  Democritus,  the  early  Greek  geometer, 
who  once  declared  that  "  In  the  construction  of 
plane  figures  with  demonstrations  no  one  has  yet 
surpassed  me,  not  even  the  rope  fasteners  (har- 
pedonaptai)  of  Egypt;"  For  a  long  time  this 
word  harpedonaptai  was  a  mystery,  but  Professor 
Cantor  cleared  it  up,  and  explaining  for  us  the 
exact  meaning  of  the  compound  which  means 
literally  either  rope  fasteners  or  rope  stretchers, 
he  says,  "  There  is  no  doubt  that  the  Egyptians 
were  very  careful  about  the  exact  orientations  of 
their  temples  and  other  public  buildings.  Old  in- 
scriptions seem  to  show  that  only  the  North 
and  South  lines  were  drawn  by  actual  observa- 
tion of  the  stars.  The  East  and  West  lines  were 
drawn  at  right  angles  to  the  others.  Now  it  ap- 
pears from  the  practice  of  Heron  of  Alexandria 
and  of  the  ancient  Indian  and  probably  also  the 
Chinese    geometers,    that    a    common    method    of 


EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW  41 

securing  a  right  angle  between  two  very  long 
lines  was  to  stretch  round  three  pegs  a  rope 
measured  in  three  portions  which  were  to  one  an- 
other in  the  ratio  3:4:5.  The  triangle  thus 
formed  is  right-angled.  Further  the  operation  of 
rope  stretching  is  mentioned  in  Egypt,  without 
explanation,  at  an  extremely  early  time  (Ame- 
nemhat  I).  If  this  be  the  correct  explanation  of 
it,  then  the  Egyptians  were  acquainted  2,000  years 
B.C.,  with  a  particular  case  of  the  proposition  now 
known  as  the  Pythagorean  theorem." 

This  may  not  seem  to  mean  very  much.  Yet 
what  it  illustrates  is  just  this.  These  men  wanted 
a  certain  development  of  mathematics.  They 
needed  it  for  the  work  that  the}^  were  engaged  at. 
They  set  themselves  to  the  solution  of  certain 
problems  and  in  doing  so  evolved  a  theorem  in 
pure  mathematics  and  an  application  of  it  which 
greatly  simplified  construction  and  gave  an  im- 
petus to  mechanics.  In  so  doing  they  anticipated 
the  work  of  a  long  after  time.  This  is  what  I 
would  insist  is  always  true  with  regard  to  man. 
When  he  needs  some  intellectual  development  he 
makes  it.  When  he  requires  an  application  of  it 
he  succeeds  in  working  it  out.  Later  ages  may 
go  farther,  but  had  he  needed  further  develop- 
ments he  evidently  had  the  power  to  make  them 
and  probably  would  have  made  them. 

The  old  Greeks  had  a  much  better  opportunity 
to  study  Egyptian  remains  than  we  have,  and 
especially  was  this  true  after  the  foundation  of 


42  EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW 

Alexandria.  There  must  have  been  a  Hvely  inter- 
est in  things  Egyptian  aroused  in  the  Greek 
minds  by  this  Greek  settlement  in  old  Egypt.  It 
is  not  surprising,  then,  to  find  some  magnificent 
compliments  to  the  old  Egyptians  in  the  mouths 
of  some  of  the  writers  about  the  time  of  the 
foundation  of  Alexandria.  Eudemus,  for  in- 
stance, the  pupil  of  Aristotle,  wrote  the  history 
of  Geometry  in  which  he  traces  its  invention  to 
the  Egyptians,  and  states  that  the  reason  for 
its  invention  was  its  necessity  in  the  remeasure- 
ment  of  land  demanded  after  the  removal  of  land- 
marks by  the  annual  rise  of  the  Nile.  Always 
does  one  find  this,  that  when  there  is  a  serious 
demand  for  an  invention  in  theory  or  practice 
men  make  it.  It  is  not  a  change  or  development 
in  man  that  brings  about  inventions,  but  a  change 
in  his  environment  which  causes  new  necessities  to 
arise,  and  then  he  proceeds  with  an  ability  al- 
ways the  same  to  respond  properly  to  those  neces- 
sities. 

Eudemus  says:  "  Geometry  is  said  by  many  to 
have  been  invented  among  the  Egyptians,  its 
origin  being  due  to  the  measurement  of  plots  of 
land.  This  was  necessary  there  because  of  the 
rising  of  the  Nile,  which  obliterated  the  bound- 
aries appertaining  to  separate  owners.  Nor  is  it 
marvellous  that  the  discovery  of  this  and  other 
sciences  should  have  arisen  from  such  an  occa- 
sion, since  everything  which  moves  in  develop- 
ment will  advance  from  the  imperfect  to  the  per- 


EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW  43 

feet.  From  mere  sense-pereeption  to  ealeula- 
tion,  and  from  this  to  reasoning,  is  a  natural 
transition." 

The  old  Egj^ptians  made  some  fine  develop- 
ments of  arithmetic.  These  were  afterwards  lost 
and  were  reinvented  probably  several  times.  I 
have  already  quoted  from  Cantor  the  opinion  that 
the  Egyptians  were  familiar  with  the  properties 
of  the  right  triangle  whose  sides  were  in  the  ratio 
3:4:5  over  4,000  j^ears  ago.  In  the  Papyrus  of 
Ahmes,  whose  contents  probably  come  from  before 
2400  B.C.,  there  are  the  solutions  of  many  prob- 
lems which  show  how  far  the  Egyptians  had  gone 
in  arithmetical  calculations.  For  instance,  there 
are  methods  of  calculating  the  solid  contents  of 
barns.  The  solutions  are  not  absolute  but  are 
very  closely  approximate.  Ahmes  has  problems 
that  were  solved  in  connection  with  the  pyramids, 
which  make  it  very  clear  that  the  old  Egyptians 
had  more  than  a  little  knowledge  of  the  principles 
of  proportion,  of  certain  geometrical  figures  and 
probabl}^  were  familiar  also  with  the  simpler 
phases  at  least  of  trigonometr}\  The  area  of  a 
circle  is  found  in  Ahmes  by  deducting  from  the 
diameter  one-ninth  and  squaring  the  remainder, 
which  gives  a  value  for  the  ratio  of  the  circum- 
ference to  the  diameter  of  a  circle  much  more 
nearly  correct  than  that  used  by  most  writers 
until  comparatively  recent  times. 

As  a  teacher  of  the  history  of  medicine  with 
certain    administrative    functions    in    a    medical 


44  EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW 

school,  I  have  been  very  much  interested  in  the 
old-time  medicine  and  above  all  the  details  of 
medical  education  that  we  find  among  the  Egyp- 
tians. Ordinarily  it  would  be  assumed  that  there 
was  so  little  of  anything  like  medical  education 
that  it  could  be  scarcely  worth  while  talking  about 
it.  On  the  contrary,  we  find  so  much  that  is 
being  constantly  added  to  by  discoverers,  that  it 
is  a  never-ending  source  of  surprise.  There  is 
a  well-grounded  tradition  founded  on  inscrip- 
tions that  Athothis,  the  son  of  Menes,  one  of  the 
early  kings,  wrote  a  work  on  anatomy.  This  king 
is  said  to  have  died  about  4150  B.C.  There  are 
traces  of  the  existence  of  hospitals  at  that  time 
in  which  diseases  were  studied  and  medical  at- 
tendants trained.  Even  earlier  than  this  there 
was  a  great  physician,  the  first  physician  of  whom 
we  have  record  in  history,  whose  name  was  I-Em- 
Hetep,  which  means  "  the  Bringer  of  Peace." 
He  had  two  other  titles,  one  of  which  was  "  the 
Master  of  Secrets,"  partly  because  he  possessed 
the  secrets  of  health  and  disease,  very  probably 
also  because  so  many  things  'had  to  be  confided 
to  him  as  a  physician.  Another  of  his  titles  was 
that  of  "  The  Scribe  of  Numbers,"  in  reference, 
doubtless,  to  the  fact  that  he  had  to  use  numbers 
so  carefully  in  making  out  his  prescriptions. 

His  first  title,  that  of  the  bringer  of  peace, 
shows  that  very  early  in  the  history  of  medicine 
it  was  recognized  that  the  physician's  first  duty 
was  to  bring  peace  of  mind  to  his  patients.     A 


EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW  45 

distinguished  French  physician  (Director)  of  the 
department  of  physiology  of  the  University  of 
Paris,  Professor  Richet,  said  not  long  since,  that 
physicians  can  seldom  cure,  they  can  often  relieve, 
but  they  can  always  console,  and  evidently  this 
oldest  physician  took  his  duty  of  consolation  seri- 
ously and  successfully.  He  lived  in  the  reign 
of  King  Tchser,  a  monarch  of  the  Third  Dynasty 
in  Egypt,  who  reigned  about  4500  B.C.  or  a  little 
later.  How  much  this  first  phj^sician  was  thought 
of  will  be  best  appreciated  from  the  fact  that  the 
well-known  step  pyramid  at  Sakkara,  the  old 
cemetery  near  Memphis,  is  called  by  his  name.  So 
great  indeed  was  the  honor  paid  to  him  that  after 
his  death  he  was  worshipped  as  a  god,  and  so  we 
have  statues  of  him  seated  with  a  scroll  on  his 
knees,  with  an  air  of  benignant  knowledge,  a 
placid-looking  man  with  a  certain  divine  expres- 
sion of  sympathy  well  suited  to  his  name,  the 
bringer  of  peace.  While  they  raised  him  to  their 
altars  he  does  not  wear  a  beard  as  did  all  their 
gods  and  their  kings  when  they  were  raised  to  the 
godly  dignit}',  but  evident^  they  felt  that  his 
humanity  was  of  supreme  interest  to  them. 

There  is  another  monument  at  Sakkara  that  is 
of  special  interest  to  us  in  its  consideration  of 
old-time  medicine.  I  discussed  it  and  its  inscrip- 
tions in  the  Journal  of  the  American  Medical 
Association  (Nov.  8,  1907).  It  is  the  tomb  of 
a  surgeon,  decorated  within  with  pictures  of  surgi- 
cal operations.    The  grandeur  of  the  tomb  and  its 


46         EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW 

location  show  us  that  the  surgeon  must  have  held 
a  very  prominent  place  in  the  community  of  that 
time.  The  date  of  this  tomb  is  not  later  than 
2500  B.C.  Certain  of  the  surgical  operations  re- 
sembled those  done  at  the  present  time.  There  is 
the  opening  of  a  carbuncle  at  the  back  of  the  neck 
which  shows  how  old  are  men's  diseases  and  the 
modes  of  their  treatment.  After  this  the  oldest 
monument  in  the  history  of  medicine  is  docu- 
mentary, the  Ebers  Papyrus,  the  writing  of 
which  is  probably  not  much  later  than  1700  B.C. 
This  consists,  moreover,  of  a  collection  of  older 
texts  and  suggestions  in  medicine,  and  some  of 
the  idioms  are  said  to  belong  to  several  distant 
periods.  It  is  probable  that  certain  portions  of 
this  papyrus  were  composed  not  much  later  than 
the  oldest  book  in  the  world,  and  that  they  date 
from  nearly  3000  B.C.  This  papyrus  is  as  interest- 
ing and  as  startling  in  its  anticipation  of  some  of 
our  modern  medical  wisdom  as  is  the  Instruction 
of  Ptah  Hotep  in  the  practical  wisdom  of  life. 
This  seems  a  good  deal  to  say,  but  there  is  ample 
evidence  for  it. 

According  to  Dr.  Carl  von  Klein,  who  discussed 
the  "  JNIedical  Features  of  the  Ebers  Papyrus " 
in  some  detail  in  the  Journal  of  the  American 
Medical  Association  about  five  years  ago,  over 
700  different  substances  are  mentioned  as  of 
remedial  value  in  this  old-time  medical  work. 
There  is  scarcely  a  disease  of  any  important  or- 
gan with  which  we  are  familiar  in  the  modern 


EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW  47 

time  that  is  not  mentioned  here.  While  the  sig- 
nificance of  diseases  of  such  organs  as  the  spleen, 
the  ductless  glands,  and  the  appendix  was  of 
course  missed,  nearly  every  other  pathological 
condition  was  either  expressly  named  or  at  least 
hinted  at.  The  papyrus  insists  very  much  on  the 
value  of  history-taking  in  medicine,  and  hints 
that  the  reason  why  physicians  fail  to  cure  is  often 
because  they  have  not  studied  their  cases  suffi- 
ciently. While  the  treatment  was  mainly  symp- 
tomatic, it  was  not  more  so  than  is  a  great  deal  of 
therapeutics  at  the  present  time,  even  in  the  regu- 
lar school  of  medicine.  The  number  and  variety 
of  their  remedies  and  of  their  modes  of  administer- 
ing them  is  so  mar\^ellous,  that  I  prefer  to  quote 
Dr.  von  Klein's  enumeration  of  them  for  you: 

"  In  this  papyrus  are  mentioned  over  700  dif- 
ferent substances  from  the  animal,  vegetable  and 
mineral  kingdoms  which  act  as  stimulants,  seda- 
tives, motor  excitants,  motor  depressants,  nar- 
cotics, hj'^pnotics,  analgesics,  anodynes,  antispas- 
modics, mydriatics,  myotics,  expectorants,  tonics, 
dentifrices,  sialogogues,  antisialics,  refrigerants, 
emetics,  antiemetics,  carminatives,  cathartics,  pur- 
gatives, astringents;  cholagogues,  anthelmintics, 
restoratives,  hsematics,  alteratives,  antipyretics, 
antiphlogistics,  antiperiodics,  diuretics,  diluents, 
diaphoretics,  sudorifics,  anhydrotics,  emmena- 
gogues,  oxytocics,  ecbolics,  galactagogues,  irri- 
tants, escharotics,  caustics,  styptics,  haemostatics, 
emollients,   demulcents,   protectives,   antizymotics, 


48  EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW 

disinfectants,  deodorants,  parasiticides,  antidotes 
and  antagonists." 

Scarcely  less  interesting  than  the  variety  of 
remedies   were   their  methods   of   administration: 

"  Medicines  are  directed  to  be  administered  in- 
ternally in  the  form  of  decoctions,  infusions,  in- 
jections, pills,  tablets,  troches,  capsules,  powders, 
potions  and  inhalations;  and  externally,  as  lotions, 
ointments,  plasters,  etc.  They  are  to  be  eaten, 
drunk,  masticated  or  swallowed,  to  be  taken  often 
once  only — often  for  many  days — and  the  time  is 
occasionally  designated — to  be  taken  mornings, 
evenings  or  at  bedtime.  Formulas  to  disguise 
bad  tasting  medicaments  are  also  given."  We 
have  no  advantages  over  the  early  Egyptians  even 
in  elegant  prescribing. 

The  traditions  with  regard  to  Egyptian  medi- 
cine which  came  to  the  Greeks  seemed  so  in- 
credible as  we  found  them  in  the  older  historians 
that  they  used  to  be  joked  about.  Herodotus 
came  in  for  a  good  deal  of  this  scoffing.  He  was 
said  to  be  entirely  too  credulous  and  prone  to 
exaggerate  in  order  to  add  interest  to  his  history, 
but  every  advance  in  our  knowledge  in  modern 
time  has  confirmed  what  Herodotus  has  to  say. 
In  the  eighteenth  century  Voltaire  said  of  him, 
"  The  Father  of  history,  nay,  rather  the  Father  of 
lies."  That  was  Voltaire's  way.  Anything  that 
was  above  him  he  scoffed  at.  Homer  was  a 
wandering  minstrel  such  as  you  might  find  in  the 
streets  of  Paris,  Dante  was  a  mediaeval  barbarian, 


EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW  49 

our  own  Shakespeare  was  a  dramatic  butcher, 
producing  his  effects  by  bloodshed  and  cruelty 
upon  the  stage.  The  nineteenth  century  has  re- 
versed Voltaire  in  every  point  of  this,  though 
some  still  listen  to  him  in  other  matters.  Above 
all,  Herodotus  has  been  amply  justified  by  modern 
investigations.  Herodotus  tells  us  of  the  tradi- 
tion of  the  number  of  different  kinds  of  medical 
specialists  in  existence  among  the  Egyptians. 
We  are  very  prone  to  think  that  specialism  is  a 
development  of  modern  medicine.  What  we  know 
of  Egypt  shows  us  how  old  it  is  and  makes  it  very 
clear  that  there  must  have  been  specialized  modes 
of  medical  education  for  these  many  doctors  who 
treated  only  very  limited  portions  of  the  body  and 
no  other. 

Herodotus  tells  us,  to  quote  for  you  the  quaint 
English  of  one  of  the  old  translations: 

"  Physicke  is  so  studied  and  practised  with  the 
Egyptians  that  every  disease  hath  his  several 
physician,  who  striveth  to  excell  in  healing  that 
one  disease  and  not  to  be  expert  in  curing  many. 
Whereof  it  cometh  that  every  corner  of  that  coun- 
try is  full  of  physicians.  Some  for  the  eyes,  others 
for  the  head,  many  for  the  teeth,  not  a  few  for 
the  stomach  and  the  inwards." 

The  Ebers  Papyrus  shows  us  that  the  specialties 
were  by  no  means  scantilj^  developed.  We  have 
traditions  of  operations  upon  the  nose,  of  reme- 
dies for  the  eyes  there  are  many  and  the  diagnosis 
and   treatment   of   eye   diseases    are   rather   well 


50  EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW 

developed.  The  filling  of  teeth  seems  even  to  have 
been  practised,*  and  while  the  traditions  in  this 
matter  are  a  little  dubious,  the  evidence  has  been 
accepted  by  some  good  authorities.  This  special- 
ism in  Egyptian  medicine  probably  existed  long 
before  Herodotus,  for  he  seems  to  speak  of  it  as 
a  very  old-time  institution  in  his  time,  and  indeed 
Egypt  had  degenerated  so  much  that  it  would  be 
hard  to  believe  that  there  was  any  such  develop- 
ment there  in  his  time.  In  the  old  temples  they 
seem  to  have  used  many  modes  of  treatment 
that  we  are  likely  to  think  of  as  very  modern. 
Music  for  instance  was  used  to  soothe  the  wor- 
ried, amusements  of  various  kinds  were  employed 
to  influence  the  disturbed  mind  favorably.  In 
many  ways  some  of  the  old  temples  resembled 
our  modern  health  resorts.  To  them  many  pa- 
tients flocked  and  were  treated  and  talked  about 
their  ailments  and  went  back  each  year  for  "  the 
cure  "  once  more,  all  the  while  being  more  bene- 
fited, as  is  true  also  in  our  own  time,  by  the 
regularity  of  life,  the  regulation  of  diet  and  the 
mental  influence  of  the  place,  than  by  any  of  the 
drugs  or  even  the  curative  waters. 

In  a  word,  our  study  of  old  Egypt  and  Egyp- 
tian education  shows  us  men  doing  things  just 
about  the  way  that  our  generation  does  them  and 
succeeding  just  about  as  well  as  we  succeed. 
They  taught  writing,  spelling  and  composition 
as  we  do  and  the  moral  content  of  their  teaching  is 
admirable.      They  had  training  schools  for  the  arts 

*  Burdett :  "  History  of  Hospitals." 


EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW  51 

and  crafts,  their  taste  is  better  than  ours  in  many 
things,  above  all,  they  trained  workmen  very 
well,  and  the  remains  of  their  achievements  are 
still  the  subject  of  our  admiration.  They  solved 
mechanical  problems  in  the  building  of  the  pyra- 
mids quite  as  well  as  we  do.  They  made  enough 
experiments  that  we  would  call  chemical,  to  find 
enduring  pigments  for  decorative  purposes  and 
they  succeeded  in  making  tools  that  enabled  them 
to  carve  stonework  beautifully.  Even  their  pro- 
fessional education  was  not  very  different  from 
our  own  and  its  results,  particularly  in  the  line 
of  specialism,  are  startling  anticipations  of  the 
most  modern  phase  of  medicine.  They  anticipated 
our  interests  in  psychotherapy  and  some  of  them 
were  mental  healers,  and  more  of  them  used  the 
influence  of  the  mind  on  the  body  than  our 
physicians  have  been  accustomed  to  until  very 
recent  years.  Their  physicians  and  surgeons  were 
held  in  the  highest  veneration,  and  what  we  know 
of  them  shows  that  the  judgment  of  the  old  Egyp- 
tians in  this  matter  was  very  good  and  better  than 
the  average  appreciation  of  phj^sicians  at  the 
present  time. 

After  all  is  said  no  one  with  any  pretence  to 
knowledge  of  the  past  would  claim  for  a  moment 
that  we  were  doing  better  work  in  anything  than 
men  have  done  at  many  times  in  the  history  of 
culture.  Our  idea  of  progress  is  just  one  of  these 
vague  bits  of  self-sufficiency  that  each  generation 
has  had  in  its  own  time  and  that  has  made  it  feel 


52  EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW 

that  somehow  what  it  is  accomphshing  means  much 
in  the  world's  history.  It  is  rather  amusing  to 
compare  the  estimate  that  any  generation  has  of 
itself  with  the  appreciation  of  it  by  succeeding 
generations.  Especially  is  this  true  for  genera- 
tions separated  by  100  years  or  more.  Generations 
are  only  made  up  of  men  and  women,  and  what 
man  or  woman  is  there  who  has  not  thought  many 
times  during  life  that  though  his  or  her  work 
might  not  be  estimated  very  highly  by  those  close 
to  it,  this  was  due  but  to  a  sad  lack  of  proper  ap- 
preciation, since  it  represented  certain  qualities  that 
well  deserved  admiration?  We  are  all  gifted  with 
this  precious  self-conceit,  which  is  not  so  bad  a 
thing,  after  all,  since  it  makes  us  work  better  than 
if  we  had  a  proper  but  much  less  exalted  appre- 
ciation of  our  real  worth.  It  is  much  easier  to 
encourage  people  to  do  things  than  to  scold  or 
criticise  them  into  doing  them.  We  shall  not  quar- 
rel with  our  generation,  then,  for  being  self -con- 
ceited,— it  is  made  up  of  human  beings, — but  we 
shall  try  and  not  let  a  due  appreciation  of  our 
accomplishment  be  smothered  entirely,  by  this 
self-conceit. 

After  all,  did  not  our  favorite  English  poet  of 
the  late  nineteenth  century  declare  us  to  be  "  the 
heirs  of  all  the  ages  in  the  foremost  files  of  time," 
and  how  could  it  be  otherwise  than  that  we  should 
be  far  ahead  of  the  past,  not  only  because  the 
evolution  of  man  made  him  more  capable  of 
handling  difficult  problems,  but  also  because  we 


EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW  53 

had  the  advantage  of  the  accumulated  wisdom 
such  as  it  was  of  the  past,  of  the  observations 
and  the  conclusions  of  our  forefathers  and,  of 
course,  we  were  far  ahead  of  them.  This  idea, 
however,  so  widely  diffused  that  it  might  almost 
be  spoken  of  as  universal,  has  received  many  jolts 
in  recent  times,  since  we  have  come  to  try  to 
develop  the  taste  and  the  intellect  of  our  people 
and  not  merely  our  material  comforts  and  our 
satisfaction  with  ourselves.  It  has  been  pointed 
out,  over  and  over  again,  in  recent  years  that, 
of  course,  there  is  no  such  thing  as  progress  in 
literature,  that  in  art  we  are  far  behind  many 
generations  of  the  past,  that  in  architecture  there 
is  not  a  new  idea  in  the  world  since  the  sixteenth 
century,  that  in  all  these  modes  of  human  ex- 
pression we  are  mere  imitators  and  not  originators. 
Our  drama  is  literally  and  literarily  a  farce,  and 
no  drama  that  any  one  expects  to  live  has  been 
written  for  more  than  a  century.  Our  buildings 
are  replicas  of  old-time  structures,  no  matter 
what  their  purpose,  whether  it  be  ecclesiastical, 
or  educational,  or  municipal,  or  beneficiary. 

Of  course  from  the  scientific  standpoint  this 
is,  after  all,  what  we  might  expect.  In  all  the 
years  of  history  of  which  we  have  any  record  there 
has  been  no  change  in  the  nature  of  man  and  no 
modification  of  his  being  that  would  lead  us  to 
expect  from  him  anything  different  from  what 
had  been  accomplished  by  man  in  the  past.  There 
is  no  change  in  man's  structure,  in  the  size  of  his 


64  EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW 

body  in  any  way,  in  his  anatomy  or  his  physiology, 
in  his  customs,  or  ways  of  hfe,  or  in  his  health. 
The  healthy  still  have  about  the  same  expectation 
of  life,  to  use  the  life  insurance  term,  and  though 
we  have  increased  the  general  average  duration 
of  life  this  has  been  at  the  expense  of  other  pre- 
cious qualities  of  the  race.  The  healthy  live 
longer,  but  the  unhealthy  also  live  longer.  The 
weaklings  in  mind  and  body  whom  nature  used 
to  eliminate  early  are  now  a  burden  that  must 
be  cared  for.  In  general  it  may  be  said,  and 
Virchow,  the  great  German  pathologist,  who  was 
one  of  the  world's  great  living  anthropologists  of 
his  time — and  that  but  a  few  years  ago — used  to 
insist,  that  man's  skeleton  and,  above  all,  his  skull 
as  we  can  study  them  in  the  mummy  of  the  olden 
time,  were  exactly  the  same  as  those  that  the  race 
has  now.  Man  cannot  by  thinking  add  a  cubit 
to  his  stature,  nor  an  inch  to  the  circumference 
of  his  skull.  The  seventh  generation  of  an  aca- 
demic family  each  member  of  which  has  been  at 
the  university  in  his  time,  is  not  any  more  likely 
to  have  special  faculties  for  the  intellectual  life, 
indeed  it  is  sometimes  hinted  that  he  has  less  of  a 
chance  than  if  his  parents  had  been  peasants  for  as 
long  as  the  history  of  the  family  can  be  traced. 
Of  course  this  has  no  proper  bearing  on  evolu- 
tion from  the  biological  standpoint,  for  the  length 
of  time  that  we  have  in  human  history  may  be 
conceded  to  be  entirely  inadequate  to  produce  any 
noticeable  changes  on  man's  body  or  mind,  grant- 


EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW  55 

ing  that  such  were  in  progress.  At  the  most  we  have 
7,000  years  of  history  and  the  evolutionists  would 
tell  us  that  this  is  as  notliing  in  the  unnumbered 
aeons  of  evolution.  In  the  popular  estimation, 
however,  evolution  can  almost  be  seen  at  work 
just  as  if  one  could  see  blades  of  grass  growing 
by  watching  them  closely  enough.  This  impres- 
sion of  man's  progi'ess  supposed  to  be  supported 
by  the  theory  of  evolution  is  entirely  unfounded. 
Just  as  his  body  is  the  same  and  his  brain  the  same 
size,  and  the  relative  proportion  of  brain  weight 
to  body  weight  or  at  least  to  skull  capacity  the 
same  now  as  they  were  6,000  years  ago;  and  this 
is  true  for  both  sexes,  so  that  because  women 
have  smaller  bodies  by  one-eighth  they  also  have 
smaller  skulls,  and  this,  too,  occurs  among  the 
mummies  in  Egypt  quite  as  in  our  own  time; 
so  in  what  he  is  able  to  do  with  body  and  mind 
man  is  unchanged.  Something  of  dexterity,  of 
facility,  of  self-confidence  and  assurance  of  re- 
sults is  gained  from  time  to  time  in  history,  but 
lost  as  often,  because  a  few  generations  fail  to 
be  interested  in  what  interested  their  immediate 
predecessors  immensely. 

It  is  not  surprising,  then,  that  history  should 
show  us  at  all  times  men  doing  work  about  like 
that  which  they  did  at  any  other  time — provided 
they  were  deeply  interested  enough.  The  wisdom 
of  the  oldest  book  in  the  world,  a  father's  advice 
to  his  son,  is  as  practical  in  most  ways  as  Gorgon 
Graham's  letters  to  his  boy — and  ever  so  much 


66         EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW 

more  ethical  and  true  to  life.  The  decorations  of 
the  old  Egyptian  tombs,  the  architecture  of  their 
temples,  their  ways  and  habits  of  life  so  far  as 
we  know  them,  all  proclaim  them  men  and  women 
just  like  ourselves,  certainly  not  separated  from 
us  by  any  gulf  or  even  streamlet  of  evolution. 
What  are  more  interesting  than  any  supposed 
progress  in  mankind,  are  the  curious  ups  and  downs 
of  interest  in  particular  subjects  which  follow  one 
another  with  almost  definite  regularity  in  history 
as  we  know  it.  Men  become  occupied  with  some 
phase  of  the  expression  of  life,  literature,  archi- 
tecture, government,  sometimes  in  two  or  three  of 
these  at  the  same  time,  and  then  there  comes  a 
wonderful  period  of  development.  Just  when 
this  epoch  reaches  an  acme  of  power  of  expres- 
sion there  come  a  self-consciousness  and  a  re- 
finement, welcomed  at  first  as  new  progress,  but 
that  seem  to  hamper  originality.  Then  follows 
a  period  of  distinct  decadence,  but  with  a  develop- 
ment of  criticism  of  what  was  done  in  the  past, 
with  the  formulation  of  certain  principles  of 
criticism.  Just  when  by  this  conscious  refiection 
it  might  be  expected  that  man  would  surely  ad- 
vance rapidly,  further  decay  takes  place  and  there 
is  a  negative  phase  of  power  of  expression,  out  of 
which  man  is  lifted  by  a  new  generation  usually 
neglectful  of  the  immediate  past,  sometimes  indeed 
deprecating  it  bitterly,  though  this  new  phase  may 
have  been  awakened  by  a  further  past,  which  gets 
back  to  nature  and  to  expression  for  itself. 


EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW  57 

The  most  interesting  feature  of  history  is  how 
men  have  done  things,  wonderful  things  that 
subsequent  generations  are  sure  to  admire  and 
continue  to  admire  whenever  they  have  sense  and 
training  enough,  yet  forget  about  them.  This  is 
true  not  only  for  artistic  productions  but  also  for 
practical  applications  in  science,  for  inventions, 
useful  discoveries  and  the  like.  In  surgery,  for 
instance,  though  we  have  a  continuous  history 
of  medicine,  all  of  our  instruments  have  been  re- 
invented at  least  three  or  four  times.  After  the 
reinvention  we  have  been  surprised  to  discover 
that  previous  generations  had  used  these  instru- 
ments long  before  us.  Even  the  Suez  Canal 
was  undoubtedly  open  at  least  once  before  our 
time.  Personally  I  feel  sure  that  America  was 
discovered  at  least  twice  before  Columbus'  time 
and  that  during  several  centuries  there  was  con- 
siderable intercourse  between  Europe  and  Amer- 
ica. It  is  extremely  important  for  us  then  to 
realize  these  cycles  in  human  progress  and  not 
to  deceive  ourselves  with  the  idea  that  because 
we  are  doing  something  that  immediately  preced- 
ing generations  knew  nothing  of,  therefore  we  are 
doing  something  that  never  was  done  in  the  world 
before.  This  is  particularly  important  for  us 
now,  for  in  my  estimation  the  eighteenth  was  one 
of  the  lowest  of  centuries  in  human  accomplish- 
ment, and  therefore  we  may  easily  deceive  our- 
selves as  to  our  place  in  human  history  in  this 
century. 


68         EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW 

Reflections  of  this  kind  are,  it  seems  to  me, 
particularly  important  for  educators,  especially  in 
the  midst  of  our  tendency  to  accept  evolution  un- 
thinkingly in  this  generation.  Man's  skull  has  not 
changed,  his  body  has  not  been  modified,  his  soft 
tissues  are  the  same  as  they  used  to  be.  His  brain 
is  no  different.  Why,  then,  should  he  not  have 
done  things  in  the  olden  time  just  about  as  he 
does  them  now?  We  do  not  think  that  acquired 
characters  are  inherited.  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes 
talks  of  Emerson  as  the  seventh  generation  of  an 
academic  family,  but  there  are  none  of  us  who 
think  that  this  made  it  any  easier  for  Emerson  to 
acquire  an  education,  or  gave  him  a  better  de- 
velopment of  mind.  Those  of  us  who  have  ex- 
perience in  education  know  that  the  descendant 
of  a  family  of  peasants  for  centuries  or  of  farm- 
ers for  many  generations,  easily  outstrips  some 
of  the  scions  of  academic  families  in  intellect.  It 
is  the  man  that  counts  and  not  his  descent. 

Just  this  is  true  of  generations  as  well  as  of 
individuals.  Whenever  men  have  set  themselves 
to  doing  things  they  have  accomplished  about  as 
good  results  at  any  time  in  history  as  at  any 
other.  We  apparently  do  not  benefit  by  the  ac- 
cumulation of  the  experience  of  our  predecessors. 
At  least  we  can  find  no  trace  of  that  in  history. 
For  a  certain  number  of  enterprising  genera- 
tions there  is  manifest  upward  progress.  Then 
something  always  happens  to  disturb  the  succes- 
sion of  ideas,  sometimes  it  is  nothing  more  than 


EDUCATION,  HOW  OLD  THE  NEW  59 

an  over-refinement  that  leads  to  bad  taste,  and 
decadence  takes  the  place  of  progress.  The  ac- 
complishment of  any  particular  generation,  then, 
depends  not  on  its  place  in  any  real  or  fancied 
scheme  of  evolution,  but  on  its  own  ideals  and  its 
determined  efforts  to  achieve  them. 

There  are  people  who  insist  that  this  doctrine 
is  pessimistic  and  discouraging  and  that,  if  we  do 
not  keep  before  men  the  consoling  feeHng  that 
they  are  advancing  beyond  their  forebears,  there  is 
not  the  same  incentive  to  work  as  there  would  be 
under  other  circumstances.  On  the  contrary,  as 
it  seems  to  me,  this  other  idea  that  everything 
depends  on  ourselves  and  not  on  our  predecessors, 
constitutes  the  highest  form  of  incentive.  We  at 
the  present  time  are  far  below  many  preceding 
generations  in  art,  literature,  architecture,  arts  and 
crafts  and  many  developments  of  taste.  Here  is 
no  evolution,  but  the  story  of  how  each  genera- 
tion sets  itself  to  work.  Why,  then,  should  we 
think  that  in  education,  one  of  the  highest  of  the 
arts,  the  moulding  of  the  human  mind  into  beauti- 
ful shapes  instead  of  the  moulding  of  more  plastic 
material,  we  should  be  far  ahead  of  the  past  and, 
therefore,  in  a  position  to  find  no  precious  lessons 
in  it?  The  history  of  education  not  alone  of  the 
last  three  centuries  of  education,  but  of  at  least 
6,000  j^ears  of  education,  is  worth  while  knowing 
and  it  magnificently  exemplifies  how  old  is  the 
new  in  education. 


THE   FIRST   MODERN   UNIVERSITY 


"  What  is  it  that  hath  been  ?  The  same  thing  that  shall 
be.  What  is  it  that  hath  been  done?  The  same  that  shall 
be  done." — Ecclesiastes  i:  10. 

**  To  one  small  people  ...  it  was  given  to  create  the 
principle  of  Progress.  That  people  was  the  Greek.  Ex- 
cept the  blind  forces  of  nature,  nothing  moves  in  this 
world  which  is  not  Greek  in  its  origin." — Maine. 


THE    FIRST    MODERN    UNIVERSITY* 

We  are  very  prone  to  think  that  our  univer- 
sities represent  new  developments  in  the  history 
of  humanity.  We  are  aware  that  there  were 
great  educational  institutions  in  the  world  at 
many  times  before  the  present,  and  that  some  of 
them  profoundly  affected  the  intellectual  life 
of  their  time;  we  are  likely  to  think,  however, 
that  these  institutions  were  very  different  from 
our  modern  universities.  They  were  not  so  well 
organized,  they  lacked  endowments,  their  depart- 
ments were  not  co-ordinated,  they  did  not  have  the 
libraries  and,  of  course,  not  the  laboratory  facili- 
ties that  our  modern  universities  have,  and  then, 
above  all,  they  did  not  devote  themselves  to  that 
one  department  of  knowledge,  physical  science, 
in  which  absolute  truth  can  be  reached,  and  in 
which  each  advance  in  knowledge  as  made  can  be 
chronicled  and  set  down  as  a  sure  basis  for  future 
work  and  workers  in  the  same  line  for  all  time. 

*  The  material  for  this  address  was  gathered  for  lectures  on  the 
History  of  Education  at  St.  Marj-'s  Seminary,  Scranton,  Pa.,  and  St. 
Joseph's  College,  Chestnut  Hill,  Philadelphia.  It  was  largely  added 
to  for  the  introductory  lecture  in  a  course  to  the  teachers  of  the 
parochial  schools  of  Philadelphia,  March,  1910.  Very  nearly  in  its 
present  form  it  was  delivered  before  the  Brooklyn  Institute  of  Arts 
and  Sciences  as  the  second  lecture  in  the  course  on  "  How  Old  The 
New  Is,"  April,  1910. 


64  THE  FIRST  MODERN  UNIVERSITY 

The  older  institutions  of  learning  were  given  up  to 
speculation,  to  idealism,  to  metaphysics,  and,  of 
course,  therefore,  their  work,  as  many  educated 
people  are  now  prone  to  look  at  it,  was  too 
shadowy  to  last,  too  cloudy  to  serve  as  a  founda- 
tion for  any  enduring  scientific  knowledge.  I  do 
not  think  that  I  exaggerate  when  I  make  this  as 
the  statement  of  the  thought  of  a  good  many 
people  of  our  time  who  are  at  least  supposed  to 
be  educated  and  who  consider  that  they  are  rea- 
sonably familiar  with  the  educational  institutions 
of  the  past. 

It  has  seemed  to  me,  then,  that  it  would  be 
interesting  and  opportune  to  trace  the  origin,  the 
development  and  the  accomplishments  of  the  first 
institution  of  learning  that  is  very  similar  to  our 
own;  and  to  retrace  some  of  the  achievements  of 
its  professors,  the  circumstances  in  which  they 
were  done  and  the  conditions  surrounding  an  an- 
cient school  which  I  think  our  study  will  make 
clear  as  well  deserving  of  the  title  of  the  first 
modern  university.  This  was  not  the  collection  of 
schools  at  Athens,  though  there  is  no  doubt  at 
all  that  great  intellectual  and  educational  work 
was  accomplished  there,  but  not  in  our  modern 
university  sense.  The  schools  were  independent, 
and  while  the  rivalry  engendered  by  this  undoubt- 
edly did  good  so  long  as  genius  ruled  in  the 
schools,  it  brought  about  a  degeneration  into 
sophistry,  from  here  comes  the  word,  and  argu- 
mentativeness, once  the  great  master  had  been  dis- 


THE  FIRST  MODERN  UNIVERSITY         65 

placed  by  disciples  who  were  sure  that  they  knew 
their  master's  mind,  and  probably  thought,  as  dis- 
ciples always  do,  that  they  were  going  beyond 
their  master,  but  who  really  occupied  themselves 
with  curious  and  trifling  tergiversations  of  mind 
within  the  narrow  circle  of  ideas  laid  down  by  the 
master, — as  has  nearly  always  been  the  case. 

The  first  modern  university  was  that  of  Alexan- 
dria. It  was  quite  as  much  under  Greek  influ- 
ence as  the  schools  of  Athens.  There  have  been 
commentators  on  the  story  of  Cleopatra,  who  have 
suggested  that  her  African  cast  of  countenance 
did  not  prove  a  deterrent  to  her  success  as  a 
conqueror  of  hearts,  and  who  argue  from  this  to 
the  fact  that  it  is  not  physical  charm  but  per- 
sonality that  counts  in  woman's  power  over  men, 
quite  forgetting,  if  they  ever  knew,  that  Cleopatra 
was  a  Greek  of  the  Greeks,  a  daughter  of  the 
line  of  the  Ptolemys,  probably  a  direct  descendant 
though  with  the  bar  sinister  of  Philip  of  Macedon, 
born  of  a  house  so  watchful  over  its  Greek  blood 
and  so  resentful  of  any  possible  admixture  of  any- 
thing less  noble  with  itself,  that  for  generations 
it  had  been  the  custom  for  brother  to  marry  sis- 
ter, in  order  that  the  race  of  the  Ptolemys  might 
be  perpetuated  in  absolute  purity.  Alexandria, 
while  a  cosmopolitan  city  in  the  inhabitants  who 
dwelt  in  it  and  in  the  wide  diffusion  of  com- 
mercial interests  that  centred  there  as  a  mart 
for  East  and  West,  was  absolutely  ruled  by 
Greeks  and  represents  for  many  centuries  after 


Q6         THE  FIRST  MODERN  UNIVERSITY 

the  decline  of  Athens  had  come,  the  brightest 
focus  of  Greek  intellectual  life,  Greek  culture  and 
art,  Greek  letters  and  education  and  every  phase 
of  that  Greek  influence  in  aesthetics  which  has  al- 
ways meant  so  much  in  the  world's  history. 

The  interesting  fact  about  Alexandria  in  the 
history  of  education,  is  that  it  was  the  home  of  a 
modern  university  in  every  sense  of  that  term, 
having  particularly  the  features  that  many  peo- 
ple are  prone  to  think  of  as  representing  modern 
evolution  in  education.  The  buildings  of  the 
university  were  erected  practically  by  a  legacy 
left  by  the  great  Conqueror  himself,  Alexander. 
The  central  point  of  interest  in  the  university 
was  a  great  library,  the  nucleus  of  which  was  the 
library  of  Aristotle,  tutor  of  Alexander,  which 
had  been  collected  with  the  help  of  that  great  Con- 
queror and  was  the  finest  collection  of  books  in 
the  world  of  that  time.  The  main  subject  of  in- 
terest in  the  university  was  physical  science  and 
its  sister  subject  mathematics,  which  raises  mere 
nature-study  into  the  realm  of  science,  and  this 
scientific  physical  education  was  conducted  in 
connection  with  the  great  museum  or  collection 
of  objects  of  interest  to  scientists  that  had  also 
been  made  partly  by  Aristotle  himself  and  partly 
for  his  loved  tutor  by  the  gratitude  of  Alexander 
during  his  conquering  expeditions  in  the  far  East. 
Finally  professors  were  attracted  to  Alexandria 
by  the  offer  of  a  better  salary  than  had  ever  been 
paid  at  educational  institutions  before  this,  and 


THE  FIRST  MODERN  UNIVERSITY         67 

by  the  additional  offer  of  a  palace  to  live  in,  sup- 
plied by  the  ruler  of  the  country.  It  is  no  won- 
der, then,  that  in  attendance  also,  as  well  as  in  the 
prestige  of  its  professors,  Alexandria  resembled 
a  modern  university. 

It  was  its  devotion  to  science,  however,  that 
especially  characterized  this  first  great  institution 
of  learning  of  which  we  have  definite  records. 
This  devotion  to  science  went  so  far  that  even 
literature  was  studied  from  the  scientific  stand- 
point. Such  details  as  we  have  of  the  instruc- 
tion at  Alexandria  and  the  books  that  have  come 
down  to  us,  all  show  men  interested  in  philology, 
in  comparative  literature,  in  grammar  and  com- 
parative grammar,  rather  than  in  the  idealistic 
modes  of  knowledge.  We  have  commentaries 
on  the  great  authors,  but  no  great  original  works 
of  genius  in  literature  from  the  professors  of 
Alexandria.  The  translation  of  the  Septuagint 
version  of  the  Old  Testament  is  a  typical  example 
of  the  sort  of  work  that  was  being  done  at  Alex- 
andria. They  collected  the  documents  of  the  na- 
tions and  translated  them  for  purposes  of  com- 
parative study.  It  was  an  education  for  informa- 
tion rather  than  for  power.  The  main  idea  of  the 
time  and  place  was  to  know  as  much  as  possible 
about  literature,  rather  than  to  know  what  it 
represented  in  terms  of  life,  and  the  real  meaning 
of  both  literature  and  life  was  obscured  in  the 
study  about  and  about  them.  People  studied 
books  about  books  rather  than  the  books  them- 


68         THE  FIRST  MODERN  UNIVERSITY 

selves.  There  was  much  writing  of  books  about 
books,  and  it  was  nearly  always  comparatively 
trivial  things  in  the  great  authors  that  attracted 
most  attention  from  the  many  scholiasts,  critics, 
editors,  commentators,  lecturers  of  the  time. 

Personally  I  could  well  understand  such  an 
incident  happening  at  Alexandria  as  is  said  to 
have  happened  at  a  well-known  English  (of  course 
not  American !)  university  not  long  ago.  The  class 
was  construing  Shakespeare  and  one  of  the  stu- 
dents asked  the  professor  what  the  meaning  of  a 
particular  figure  used  by  the  great  dramatist 
was.  The  professor  replied  that  they  were  there 
to  construe  Shakespeare's  language  and  not  bother 
about  his  meaning — yet  it  was  a  class  in  literature. 
Literature  in  recent  years  as  studied  at  the  uni- 
versities has  come  to  be  quite  as  scientific  in  its 
modes  and  methods  as  it  was  at  the  University 
of  Alexandria.  May  I  also  add  that  it  has  become 
quite  as  sterile  of  results  of  any  importance.  There 
is  very  little  real  study  of  literature,  practically 
no  encouragement  of  the  attempt  to  draw  inspira- 
tion from  the  great  authors,  but  all  devotion  to 
the  grammar,  to  the  philology,  to  comparative 
literature  as  exemplified  in  the  old  writers. 

Books  were  the  great  essentials  at  Alexandria. 
This  is  not  surprising  seeing  that  the  university 
was  founded  around  a  great  library,  and  that  this 
library  continued  to  be  the  greatest  in  the  world 
in  its  time.  Every  student  who  came  to  Alexan- 
dria bringing  a  book  with  him  of  which  there  was 


THE  FIRST  MODERN  UNIVERSITY         69 

no  copy  in  the  library,  was  required  by  a  decree  of 
the  authorities  to  leave  a  copy  behind  him.  In  all 
the  university  towns  of  the  times — and  there  were 
many  founded  in  the  rising  eastern  cities  of 
Alexander's  empire,  as  it  gradually  crumbled  into 
smaller  pieces  providing  new  capitals  with  less 
power  but  with  quite  as  much  national  feeling 
as  the  capital  cities  of  larger  states,  libraries  be- 
came the  fashion  and  a  city's  main  claim  to 
prestige  in  education  and  the  intellectual  life  was 
the  number  of  its  books.  Antioch,  Tarsus,  Cos, 
Cnidos  and  Pergamos  are  examples  of  this  state 
of  affairs.  Pergamos  was  so  jealous  of  the  pres- 
tige of  the  Alexandrian  Library  that  it  forbade 
the  exportation  of  parchment,  an  invention  of 
Pergamos  which  received  its  name  from  that 
city.  Petty  jealousies  were  quite  as  much  the 
rule  among  educational  institutions  then  as  they 
have  been  at  any  time  since. 

To  many  people  it  will  seem  quite  absurd  to 
talk  of  Alexandria  as  having  done  serious  scien- 
tific work  because  the  methods  of  science  and 
scientific  investigation  are  supposed  to  have  been, 
as  they  think,  discovered  by  Lord  Bacon  in  the 
seventeenth  century.  It  is  curious  how  many 
educated  people,  or  at  least  supposedly  educated 
people,  have  this  as  their  basic  notion  of  the  his- 
torj^  of  science.  INIen  wandered  in  the  mazes  of 
inductive  reasoning  utterly  unable  to  bring  ob- 
servations together  in  such  a  way  as  to  discover 
laws,  utterly  incompetent  to  note  phenomena  and 


70         THE  FIRST  MODERN  UNIVERSITY 

bring  them  into  relations  to  one  another  so  as  to 
show  their  scientific  bearing,  until  Queen  Eliza- 
beth's Lord  Chancellor  came  to  show  the  way  out 
of  the  labyrinth  and  leave  the  precious  cord 
through  its  corridors,  by  which  others  may  easily 
thread  their  way  into  the  free  air  of  scientific 
truth.  I  know  nothing  that  is  more  absurd  than 
this.  It  is  a  commonplace  among  educators,  how- 
ever; it  is  frequently  referred  to  in  educational 
addresses  as  if  it  were  a  universally  accepted 
proposition,  and  to  dispute  it  would  seem  the 
rankest  kind  of  scientific  heresy  to  these  narrow 
minds.  Fortunately  there  are  two  writers,  Ma- 
caulay  and  Huxley,  to  whom  even  these  people 
are  likely  to  listen,  who  have  expressed  them- 
selves with  regard  to  this  precious  historic  super- 
stition that  Lord  Bacon  invented  the  inductive 
method  of  reasoning  with  what  my  long-worded 
friend  would  call   appropriate   opprobrium. 

Macaulay  says:  "  The  inductive  method  has 
been  practised  ever  since  the  beginning  of  the 
world  by  every  human  being.  It  is  constantly 
practised  by  the  most  ignorant  clown,  by  the  most 
thoughtless  schoolbo)%  by  the  very  child  at  the 
breast.  That  method  leads  the  clown  to  the  con- 
clusion that  if  he  sows  barley  he  shall  not  reap 
wheat.  By  that  method  the  schoolboy  learns  that 
a  cloudy  day  is  the  best  for  catching  trout.  The 
very  infant,  we  imagine,  is  led  by  induction  to 
expect  milk  from  his  mother  or  nurse,  and  none 
from  his  father.     Not  only  is   it  not  true  that 


THE  FIRST  MODERN  UNIVERSITY         71 

Bacon  invented  the  inductive  method;  but  it  is 
not  true  that  he  was  the  first  person  who  cor- 
rectly analyzed  that  method  and  explained  its  uses. 
Aristotle  had  long  before  pointed  out  the  absurd- 
ity of  supposing  that  syllogistic  reasoning  could 
ever  conduct  men  to  the  discovery  of  any  new 
principle,  had  shown  that  such  discoveries  must 
be  made  by  induction,  and  by  induction  alone, 
and  had  given  the  history  of  the  inductive  process, 
concisely  indeed,  but  with  great  perspicuity  and 
precision." 

And  Huxley  quite  as  emphatically  points  out: 
"  The  method  of  scientific  investigation  is  noth- 
ing but  the  expression  of  the  necessary  mode  of 
working  of  the  human  mind.  It  is  simply  the 
mode  by  which  all  phenomena  are  reasoned 
about — rendered  precise  and  exact." 

While  the  whole  trend  of  education,  even  that 
of  literature,  was  scientific  at  Alexandria,  the 
principal  feature  of  the  teaching  was,  as  we  have 
said,  concerned  with  the  physical  sciences  and 
mathematics.  It  is  in  mathematics  that  the  great- 
est triumphs  were  secured.  Euclid's  "  Geometry," 
as  we  use  it  at  the  present  time  in  our  colleges 
and  universities,  was  put  into  form  by  Euclid 
teaching  at  the  University  of  Alexandria  in  the 
early  days  of  the  institution.  Euclid's  setting 
forth  of  geometry  was  so  perfect  that  it  has  re- 
mained for  over  2,000  years  the  model  on  which  y 
all  text-books  of  geometry  of  all  the  later  times 
have  been  written.     There  seems  no  doubt  that 


72  THE  FIRST  MODERN  UNIVERSITY 

writers  on  the  history  of  mathematics  are  quite 
justified  in  proclaiming  EucKd's  "  Geometry  "  as 
one  of  the  greatest  intellectual  works  that  ever 
came  from  the  hand  of  man.  The  first  Ptolemy 
was  fortunate  in  having  secured  this  man  as  the 
founder  of  the  mathematical  department  of  his 
university.  His  example,  the  wonderful  incentive 
of  his  work,  the  absolute  perfection  of  his  con- 
clusions, must  have  proved  marvellous  emulative 
factors  for  the  students  who  flocked  to  Alex- 
andria. 

Commonly  mathematicians  are  said  to  be  im- 
practical geniuses  so  occupied  with  mathematical 
ideas  that  their  influence  in  other  ways  counts 
for  little  in  university  life.  If  we  are  to  believe 
the  stories  that  come  to  us  with  regard  to  Euclid, 
however,  and  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  them, 
for  some  of  them  come  from  men  who  are  almost 
contemporaries,  or  from  men  who  had  their  in- 
formation from  contemporaries,  Euclid's  influence 
in  the  university  must  have  been  for  all  that  is 
best  in  education.  Proclus  tells  the  storj^  of  King 
Ptolemy  once  having  asked  Euclid,  if  there  was 
any  shorter  way  to  obtain  a  knowledge  of  geom- 
etry than  through  the  rather  difficult  avenue  of 
Euclid's  own  text-book,  and  the  great  mathema- 
tician replied  that  there  was  "  no  royal  road  to 
geometry."  Stoba^us  relates  the  story  of  a  stu- 
dent who,  having  learned  the  first  theorem,  asked 
"  but  what  shall  I  make  by  learning  these 
things?  "    The  question  is  so  modern  that  Euclid's 


THE  FIRST  j^ODERN  UNIVERSITY         73 

answer  deserves  to  be  in  the  memory  of  all  those 
who  are  interested  in  education.  Euclid  called 
his  slave  and  said,  "  Give  him  twopence,  since  he 
must  make  something  out  of  everything  that  he 
does,  even  the  improvement  of  his  mind." 

Probably  even  more  significant  than  the  tradi- 
tion that  Euclid  did  his  work  at  this  first  modern 
university,  and  that  besides  being  a  mathematician 
he  was  a  man  of  very  practical  ideas  in  education, 
is  the  fact  that  he  was  appreciated  by  the  men  of 
his  time  and  that  his  work  was  looked  up  to  with 
highest  reverence  by  his  contemporaries  and  im- 
mediate successors  as  representing  great  achieve- 
ment. It  Is  not  ever  thus.  Far  from  resenting 
in  any  way  the  magnificent  synthesis  that  he  had 
made  of  many  rather  vague  notions  in  mathematics 
before  his  time,  his  contemporaries  united  in  doing 
him  honor.  They  realized  that  his  teaching 
created  a  proper  scientific  habit  of  mind.  Pappus 
says  of  Apollonius  that  he  spent  a  long  time  as 
a  pupil  of  Euclid  at  Alexandria  and  it  was  thus 
that  he  acquired  a  thorough  scientific  habit  of 
mind.  After  Euclid's  time  the  value  of  his  dis- 
coveries as  a  means  of  training  the  mind  was 
thoroughly  appreciated.  The  Greek  philosophers 
are  said  to  have  posted  on  the  doors  of  their 
schools  "  Let  no  one  enter  here  who  does  not 
know  his  Euclid."  In  the  midst  of  the  crumbling 
of  old-fashioned  methods  of  education  in  the 
introduction  of  the  elective  system,  in  the  modern 
time,  many  of  our  best  educators  have  insisted 


74         THE  FIRST  MODERN*  UNIVERSITY 

that  at  least  this  portion  of  mathematics,  Euclid's 
contribution  to  the  science,  should  be  a  required 
study,  and  most  educators  feel,  even  when  there 
is  question  of  law  or  medical  stud^^,  that  one  of 
the  best  preparations  is  to  be  found  in  a  thorough 
knowledge  of  Euclid. 

Almost  as  wonderful  as  the  work  of  Euclid 
was  that  of  the  second  great  mathematician  of  the 
Alexandrian  school,  Archimedes,  who  not  only 
developed  pure  mathematics  but  applied  mathe- 
matical principles  to  mechanics  and  proved  be- 
sides to  have  wonderful  mechanical  ability  and 
inventive  genius.  It  was  Archimedes  of  whom 
Cicero  spoke  so  feelingly  in  his  "  Tusculan  Dispu- 
tations," when  about  a  century  and  a  quarter  after 
Archimedes'  death,  he  succeeded  in  finding  his 
tomb  in  the  old  cemetery  at  Syracuse  during  his 
quaestorship  there.  How  curious  it  is  to  think 
that  after  so  short  a  time  as  127  years  from 
the  date  of  his  death  Archimedes  was  absolutely 
forgotten  by  his  fellow- Syracusans,  who  reso- 
lutely denied  that  any  trace  of  Archimedes'  tomb 
existed.  This  stranger  from  Rome  knew  much 
more  of  Archimedes  than  his  fellow-citizens  a 
scant  four  generations  after  his  time.  Not  how 
men  advance,  but  how  they  forget  even  great  ad- 
vance that  has  been  made,  lose  sight  of  it  entirely 
at  times  and  only  too  often  have  to  rediscover  it, 
is  the  most  interesting  phase  of  history.  Cicero 
says,  "  Thus  one  of  the  noblest  cities  of  Greece 
and  one  which  at  one  time  had  been  very  cele- 


THE  FIRST  MODERN  UNIVERSITY         75 

brated  for  learning,  knew  nothing  of  the  monu- 
ment of  its  greatest  genius  until  it  was  redis- 
covered for  them  by  a  native  of  Arpinum " — 
Cicero's  modest   designation   for  himself. 

We  have  known  much  more  about  Archimedes' 
inventions  than  about  his  mathematical  works. 
The  Archimedian  screw,  a  spiral  tube  for  pump- 
ing water,  invented  by  him,  is  still  used  in  Egypt. 
The  old  story  with  regard  to  his  having  suc- 
ceeded in  making  burning  mirrors  by  which  he 
was  enabled  to  set  the  Roman  vessels  on  fire 
during  the  siege  of  Sj^racuse,  used  to  be  doubted 
very  seriously  and,  indeed,  by  many  considered 
a  quite  incredible  feat,  clearly  an  historical  ex- 
aggeration, until  Cuvier  and  others  in  the  early 
part  of  the  nineteenth  century  succeeded  in  mak- 
ing a  mirror  by  which  in  an  experiment  in  the 
Jardin  des  Plantes  in  Paris  wood  was  set  on 
fire  at  a  distance  of  140  feet.  As  the  Roman 
vessels  were  very  small,  propelled  only  by  oars  or 
at  least  with  very  small  sail  capacity,  and  as  their 
means  of  offence  was  most  crude  and  they  had 
to  approach  surely  within  100  feet  of  the  wall  to 
be  effective,  the  old  story  therefore  is  probably 
entirely  true.  The  other  phase  of  history  accord- 
ing to  which  Archimedes  succeeded  in  construct- 
ing instruments  by  which  the  Roman  vessels  were 
lifted  bodily  out  of  the  water,  is  probably  also 
true,  and  certainly  comes  with  great  credibility 
of  the  man  of  whom  it  is  told  that,  after  having 
studied  the  lever,  he  declared  that  if  he  only  had 


76         THE  FIRST  MODERN  UNIVERSITY 

some  place  to  rest  his  lever,  he  could  move  the 
world. 

The  well-known  story  of  his  discovery  in  hydro- 
statics, by  which  he  was  enabled  to  tell  the  King 
whether  the  royal  goldsmiths  had  made  his  crown 
of  solid  gold  or  not,  is  very  well  authenticated. 
Archimedes  realized  the  application  of  the  prin- 
ciple of  sj)ecific  gravity  in  the  solution  of  such 
problems  while  he  was  taking  a  bath.  Quite  for- 
getful of  his  state  of  nudity  he  ran  through  the 
streets,  crying  "  Eureka!  Eureka!  I  have  found 
it!  I  have  found  it!"  There  are  many  other 
significant  developments  of  hydrostatics  and  me- 
chanics, besides  specific  gravity  and  the  lever,  the 
germs  of  which  are  at  least  attributed  to  Archi- 
medes. He  seems  to  have  been  one  of  the  world's 
great  eminent  practical  geniuses.  That  he  should 
have  been  a  product  of  Alexandria  and  should 
even  have  been  a  professor  there  would  be  a 
great  surprise  if  we  did  not  know  Alexandria  as  a 
great  scientific  university.  As  it  is,  it  is  quite  easy 
to  understand  how  naturally  he  finds  his  place  in 
the  history  of  that  university  and  how  proud  any 
modern  university  would  be  to  have  on  the  rolls 
of  its  students  and  professors  a  man  who  not 
only  developed  pure  science  but  who  made  a 
series  of  practical  applications  that  are  of  great 
value  to  mankind.  Such  men  our  modern  uni- 
versities appropriately  claim  the  right  to  vaunt 
proudly  as  the  products  of  their  training. 

When   we   analyze   something   of  the   work   in 


THE  FIRST  MODERN  UNIVERSITY         77 

pure  mathematics  that  was  accompHshed  by  Archi- 
medes our  estimation  of  him  is  greatly  enhanced. 
His  work  "  On  the  Quadrature,"  that  is  the  find- 
ing of  the  area  of  a  segment  of  the  parabola,  is 
probably  his  most  significant  contribution  to 
mathematical  knowledge.  His  proof  of  the  prin- 
cipal theorem  in  this  is  obtained  by  the  "  method 
of  exhaustion,"  which  had  been  invented  by 
Eudoxus  but  was  greatly  developed  by  Archi- 
medes. This  method  contains  in  itself  the  germ 
of  that  most  powerful  instrument  of  mathematical 
analysis  in  the  modern  time,  the  calculus. 

Another  very  important  work  was  "  The  Sphere 
and  the  Cylinder."  This  was  more  appreciated 
in  his  own  time,  and  as  a  consequence,  after  his 
death  the  figure  of  a  sphere  inscribed  in  a  cylinder 
was  cut  on  his  tomb  in  commemoration  of  his 
favorite  theorem,  that  the  volume  of  the  sphere 
is  two-thirds  that  of  the  cylinder  and  its  surface 
is  four  times  that  of  the  base  of  the  cylinder.  It 
was  by  searching  for  this  symbol,  famous  in  an- 
tiquity, that  Cicero  was  enabled  to  find  his  tomb 
according  to  the  story  that  I  have  already  related. 

Within  the  last  few  years  the  reputation  of 
Archimedes  in  pure  mathematics  has  been  greatly 
enhanced  by  the  discovery  by  Professor  Heiberg 
of  a  lost  work  of  the  great  Alexandrian  professor 
in  Constantinople.  Archimedes  himself  stated  in 
a  dedication  of  the  work  to  Eratosthenes  the 
method  employed  in  this.  He  says :  "  I  have 
thought  it  well  to  analyze  and  lay  down  for  you 


78         THE  FIRST  MODERN  UNIVERSITY 

in  this  same  book  a  peculiar  method  by  means  of 
which  it  will  be  possible  for  you  to  derive  instruc- 
tion as  to  how  certain  mathematical  questions  may 
be  investigated  by  means  of  mechanics.  And  I 
am  convinced  that  this  is  equally  profitable  in 
demonstrating  a  proposition  itself,  for  much  that 
was  made  evident  to  me  through  the  medium  of 
mechanics  was  later  proved  by  means  of  geometry, 
because  the  treatment  by  the  former  method  had 
not  yet  been  established  by  way  of  a  demonstra- 
tion. For  of  course  it  is  easier  to  establish  a 
proof,  if  one  has  in  this  way  previously  obtained 
a  conception  of  the  questions,  than  for  him  to  seek 
it  without  such  a  preliminary  notion.  .  .  .  In- 
deed, I  assume  that  some  one  among  the  investi- 
gators of  to-day  or  in  the  future,  will  discover 
by  the  method  here  set  forth  still  other  proposi- 
tions which  have  not  yet  occurred  to  me."  On 
this  Professor  Smith  comments:  "Perhaps  in  all 
the  history  of  mathematics  no  such  prophetic 
truth  was  ever  put  into  words.  It  would  almost 
seem  as  if  Archimedes  must  have  seen  as  in  a 
vision  the  methods  of  Galileo,  Cavalieri,  Pascal, 
Newton,  and  many  other  great  makers  of  the 
mathematics  of  the  Renaissance  and  the  present 
time." 

Many  other  distinguished  professors  of  mathe- 
matics have,  since  this  declaration  of  Archimedes 
came  under  their  notice,  declared  that  he  must 
have  had  almost  a  prophetic  vision  of  certain  de- 
velopments of  mathematics  and  especially  applied 


THE  FIRST  MODERN  UNIVERSITY         79 

mathematics  and  mechanics  and  their  relation  to 
one  another,  that  were  only  to  come  in  much  later 
and  indeed  comparatively  modern  times.  Un- 
doubtedly Archimedes'  works  proved  the  germ  of 
magnificent  development  not  only  immediately 
after  his  own  time  but  in  the  long-after  time  of 
the  Renaissance,  when  their  translation  awakened 
minds  to  mathematical  problems  and  their  solu- 
tions that  would  not  otherwise  have  come. 

We  know  much  less  of  the  life  of  the  third  of 
the  great  trio  of  teachers  and  students  of  Alex- 
andria, Apollonius  of  Perga.  Perhaps  it  should 
be  enough  for  us  to  know  that  his  contemporaries 
spoke  of  him  as  "  the  great  geometer,"  though 
they  were  familiar  with  Euclid's  book  and  with 
Archimedes'  mighty  work.  Apollonius  was  surely 
a  student  of  Alexandria  for  many  years  and  he 
was  probably  also  a  professor  of  mathematics 
there.  He  developed  especially  what  we  know 
now  as  conic  sections.  His  book  on  the  subject 
contains  practically  all  of  the  theorems  to  be 
found  in  our  text-books  of  analytical  geometry 
or  conic  sections  of  the  present  time.  It  was  de- 
veloped with  rigorous  mathematical  logic  and 
Euclidean  conclusiveness.  These  three  men  show 
us  beyond  all  doubt  how  finely  the  mathematical 
side  of  the  university  developed. 

After  Archimedes  the  greatest  mechanical 
genius  of  the  University  of  Alexandria  was 
Heron.  To  him  we  owe  a  series  of  inventions 
and  discoveries  in  hydrostatics  and  the  construe- 


80         THE  FIRST  MODERN  UNIVERSITY 

tion  of  various  mechanical  toys  that  have  been 
used  in  the  laboratories  since.  There  is  even  a 
little  engine  run  by  steam — the  seolipile — in- 
vented by  him,  which  shows  how  close  the  old 
Greeks  were  to  the  underlying  principles  of  dis- 
coveries that  were  destined  to  come  only  after  the 
development  of  industries  created  a  demand  for 
them  in  the  after  time.  Heron's  engine  is  a  globe 
of  copper  mounted  on  pivots,  containing  water, 
which  on  being  heated  produces  steam  that  finds 
its  way  out  through  tubes  bent  so  as  to  open  in 
opposite  directions  on  each  side  of  the  globe.  The 
impact  of  the  escaping  steam  on  the  air  sets  the 
globe  revolving,  and  the  principle  of  the  turbine 
engine  at  work  is  clear.  We  have  used  steam 
for  nearly  200  years  always  with  a  reciprocating 
type  of  movement,  so  that  to  apply  energy  in  one 
direction  the  engine  has  had  to  move  its  parts 
backwards  and  forwards,  but  here  was  a  direct- 
motion  turbine  engine  in  the  long  ago.  Our  great 
steamboats,  the  Lusitania  and  the  Mauretania, 
now  cross  the  ocean  by  the  use  of  this  principle 
and  not  by  the  reciprocating  engine,  and  it  is  evi- 
dent that  it  is  along  these  lines  the  future  de- 
velopments of  the  application  of  steam  are  to  take 
place. 

Another  extremely  interesting  invention  made 
by  Heron  is  the  famous  fountain  called  by  his 
name,  and  which  still  is  used  to  illustrate  prin- 
ciples in  pneumatics  in  our  classrooms  and  labora- 
tories.   By  means  of  condensed  air  water  is  made 


THE  FIRST  MODERN  UNIVERSITY         81 

to  spring  from  a  jet  in  a  continuous  stream  and 
seems  paradoxically  to  rise  higher  than  its  source. 
Probably  his  best  work  in  the  domain  of  physics 
IS  that  on  pneumatics  in  which  are  given  not 
only  a  'series  of  discussions,  but  of  experiments 
and  demonstrations  on  the  elasticity  of  air  and  of 
steam.  These  experiments  could  only  have  been 
conducted  in  what  we  now  call  a  physical  labora- 
tory. Indeed  these  inventions  of  his  are  still  used 
in  laboratories  for  demonstration  purposes.  While 
we  may  think,  then,  that  the  foundation  of  labora- 
tories was  reserved  to  our  day,  there  is  abundant 
evidence  for  their  existence  at  the  University  of 
Alexandria.  We  shall  return  to  this  subject  a 
little  later,  when  the  evidence  from  other  depart- 
ments has  been  presented,  and  then  it  will  be 
clear,  I  think,  that  the  laboratorj^  methods  were 
favorite  modes  of  teaching  at  the  University 
of  Alexandria  and  were  in  use  in  nearly  all  de- 
partments of  science  both  for  research  and  for 
demonstration  purposes. 

The  work  of  the  other  great  teacher  at  Alex- 
andria which  was  to  influence  mankind  next  to 
that  of  Euclid,  was  not  destined  to  withstand 
the  critical  study  of  succeeding  generations,  though 
it  served  for  some  1,500  j^ears  as  the  basis  of 
their  thinking  in  astronom5\  This  was  the  work 
of  Ptolemy,  the  great  professor  of  astronomy  at 
Alexandria  of  the  first  century  after  Christ.  It 
is  easy  for  us  now  to  see  the  absurdity  of 
Ptolemy's   system.      It   is   even   hard   for   us   to 


82         THE  FIRST  MODERN  UNIVERSITY 

understand  how  men  could  have  accepted  it.  It 
must  not  be  forgotten,  however,  that  it  solved  all 
the  astronomical  problems  of  fifteen  centuries 
and  that  it  even  enabled  men,  by  its  application, 
to  foretell  events  in  the  heavens,  and  scientific 
prophecy  is  sometimes  claimed  to  be  the  highest 
test  of  the  truth  of  a  sj^stem  of  scientific  thought. 
Even  so  late  as  1620  Francis  Bacon  refused  to 
accept  Copernicanism,  alreadj^  before  the  world 
for  more  than  a  century,  because  it  did  not,  as  it 
seemed  to  him,  solve  all  the  difficulties,  while 
Ptolemy's  system  did.  As  great  an  astronomer 
as  Tycho  Brahe  living  in  the  century  after  Coper- 
nicus still  clung  to  Ptolemy's  teaching.  It  must 
not  be  forgotten  that  when  Galileo  restated 
Copernicanism,  the  reason  for  the  rejection  of 
his  teaching  by  all  the  astronomers  of  Europe 
almost  without  exception,  was  that  his  reasons 
were  not  conclusive.  They  preferred  to  hold  on 
to  the  old  which  had  been  so  satisfying  than  to 
accept  the  new  which  seemed  dubious.  Their  wis- 
dom in  this  will  be  best  appreciated  from  the  fact 
that  none  of  Galileo's  reasons  maintained  them- 
selves. 

Though  his  system  has  been  rejected,  still 
Ptolemy  must  be  looked  up  to  as  one  of  the  great 
teachers  of  mankind  and  his  work  the  "  Alma- 
gest "  as  one  of  the  great  contributions  to  human 
knowledge.  The  fact  that  he  represented  a 
climax  of  astronomical  development  at  Alexan- 
dria some  four  centuries  after  the  foundation  of 


THE  FIRST  MODERN  UNIVERSITY         83 

that  university,  serines  to  show  how  much  that  first 
modern  university  occupied  itself  for  all  the  cen- 
turies of  its  highest  prestige,  with  physical  science 
as  well  as  with  mathematics.  Astronomy,  physics, 
especially  hydrostatics  and  mechanics,  were  all 
wonderfully  developed.  Generations  of  professors 
had  given  themselves  to  research  and  to  the  pub- 
lication of  important  works  quite  as  in  the  modern 
time,  and  Alexandria  may  well  claim  the  right 
to  be  placed  beside  any  university  for  what  it 
accomplished  in  physical  science,  and  rank  high 
if  not  highest  in  the  list  of  great  research  insti- 
tutions adding  new  knowledge  to  old,  leading  men 
across  the  borderland  of  the  unknown  in  science 
and  furnishing  that  precious  incentive  to  growing 
youth  to  occupy  itself  with  the  scientific  prob- 
lems of  the  world  around  it. 

The  most  important  part  of  the  scientific  work 
of  the  University  of  Alexandria  to  my  mind  re- 
mains to  be  spoken  of,  and  that  is  the  medical 
department.  It  is  a  well-known  law  in  the  his- 
tory of  medicine  that,  whenever  medical  schools 
are  attached  to  universities  in  such  a  way  that 
students  who  come  to  the  medical  department 
have  been  thoroughly  trained  by  prehminary 
studies  and  have  such  standards  of  scholarship 
as  obtain  in  genuine  university  work,  then  great 
progress  in  medicine  and  In  medical  education 
is  accomplished.  This  was  emimently  the  case 
at  Alexandria.  The  departments  of  the  arts, 
of  linguistics   and   of   philosophy   were   gathered 


84  THE  FIRST  MODERN  UNIVERSITY 

around  the  great  building  known  in  Greek  as  the 
Mouseion,  a  word  that  has  come  to  us  through 
the  Latin  under  the  guise  of  Museum.  This 
temple  of  the  Muses  contained  collections  of  vari- 
ous kinds  and  near  it  was  situated  the  great  li- 
brary. Not  far  away  was  the  Serapeum,  or  Tem- 
ple of  Serapis,  the  Goddess  of  Life,  around  which 
were  centred  the  biological  sciences,  and  close 
by  was  the  medical  school.  As  teachers  for  this 
medical  school  some  of  the  greatest  physicians  of 
the  time  were  secured  by  the  first  Ptolemy  and  a 
great  period  in  medical  history  began. 

The  practical  wisdom  guiding  the  Ptolemys  in 
the  organization  of  this  medical  school  will  be 
best  appreciated  from  the  fact  that  they  took  the 
first  step  by  inviting  two  distinguished  physicians, 
the  products  of  the  two  greatest  medical  schools 
of  the  time,  to  lay  the  foundations  at  Alexandria. 
They  were  probably  the  best  investigators  of  their 
time  and  they  had  behind  them  fine  traditions  of 
research,  thorough  observation  and  conservative 
reasoning  and  theorizing  on  scientific  subjects. 
Erasistratos  was  a  disciple  of  INIetrodoros,  the 
son-in-law  of  Aristotle.  He  had  studied  for  a 
time  under  another  great  teacher,  Chrysippos  of 
Cnidos.  We  are  likely  to  know  much  more  of 
Cos  than  of  Cnidos  because  of  the  reputation 
in  the  after  time  of  Hippocrates,  whose  name  is 
so  closely  connected  with  Cos  that  the  two  are 
almost  invariably  associated,  but  Cnidos  was  one 
of  the  great  university  towns  of  the  later  Greek 


THE  FIRST  MODERN  UNIVERSITY         85 

civilization.  Eudoxus  the  astronomer,  Ctesias 
the  writer  on  Persian  history,  and  Sostratos  the 
builder  of  the  great  lighthouse,  one  of  the  seven 
wonders  of  the  world,  the  Pharos  at  Alexandria, 
were  products  of  this  university.  Its  medical 
school  was  famous  when  Cos  had  somewhat  de- 
clined, and  Chrysippos  was  one  of  the  leading 
physicians  of  the  world  and  one  of  the  acknowl- 
edged great  teachers  of  medicine  when  Erasis- 
tratos  studied  under  him  at  Cnidos,  and  obtained 
that  scientific  training  and  incentive  to  original 
research  which  was  to  prove  so  valuable  to  Alex- 
andria. 

His  colleague,  Herophilos,  was  quite  as  dis- 
tinguished as  Erasistratos  and  owed  his  training 
to  the  rival  school  of  Cos.  Whether  it  was  inten- 
tional or  not  to  secure  these  two  products  of  rival 
schools  for  the  healthy  spirit  of  competition  that 
would  come  from  it,  and  because  they  wanted  to 
have  at  Alexandria  the  emulation  that  would 
naturally  be  aroused  by  such  a  condition,  is  not 
known,  but  there  can  be  no  doubt  of  the  wisdom 
of  the  choice  and  of  the  foresight  which  dictated 
it.  Herophilos  had  studied  medicine  under  Prax- 
agoras,  one  of  the  best-known  successors  of  Hip- 
pocrates. While  distinguished  as  a  surgeon  he 
had  more  influence  on  medicine  than  almost  any 
man  of  his  time,  except  possibly  Erasistratos.  He 
was,  however,  a  great  anatomist  and,  above  all, 
a  zoologist  who,  according  to  tradition,  had  ob- 
tained his  knowledge  of  animals  from  the  most 


86         THE  FIRST  MODERN  UNIVERSITY 

careful  zootomy  of  literally  thousands  of  speci- 
mens. His  fair  fame  is  blackened  by  the  other 
tradition  that  he  practised  vivisection  on  human 
beings — criminals  being  turned  over  to  him  for 
that  purpose  by  the  Ptolemj^s,  who  were  deeply 
interested  in  his  researches.  The  traditions  in  this 
matter,  however,  serve  to  confirm  the  idea  of  his 
zeal  as  an  investigator  and  his  ardent  labors  in 
medical  science.  TertuUian  declares  that  he  dis- 
sected at  least  600  living  persons.  We  know 
that  he  did  much  dissection  of  human  cadavers 
and  there  is  question  whether  Tertullian's  state- 
ment was  not  gross  exaggeration  due  to  confusion 
between  dissection  and  vivisection. 

Both  of  these  men  did  some  magnificent  work 
upon  the  brain.  This  being  the  first  period  in  the 
history  of  humanity  when  human  beings  could 
be  dissected  freely,  it  is  not  surprising  that  they 
should  take  up  brain  anatomy  with  ardent  devo- 
tion, in  the  hope  to  solve  some  of  the  many  human 
problems  that  seemed  to  centre  in  this  complex 
organ.  Before  this  anatomy  had  been  learned 
mainly  from  animals,  and  as  human  beings  differ 
most  widely  from  animals  by  their  brain,  natu- 
rally, as  soon  as  the  opportunity  presented  itself, 
anatomists  gave  themselves  to  thorough  work  on 
this  structure  where  so  many  discoveries  were 
waiting  to  be  made.  After  the  brain  and  nervous 
system  the  heart  was  studied,  and  Erasistratos' 
description  of  its  valves,  of  its  general  structure 
and  even  of  its  physiology,  show  how  much  he 


THE  FIRST  MODERN  UNIVERSITY         87 

knew.  To  know  something  of  the  work  of  these 
two  anatomists  is  to  see  at  once  what  is  accom- 
plished in  a  university  medical  school  where  medi- 
cal science,  and  not  the  mere  practice  of  medicine 
alone,  is  the  object  of  teachers  and  students.  I 
have  told  the  story  of  this  in  my  address  before 
the  graduates  of  the  St.  Louis  Medical  University 
Medical  School,  and  here  I  shall  simply  refer  you 
to  that.* 

Of  course  all  these  studies  at  the  university 
could  not  be  conducted  without  laboratory  equip- 
ment. Of  itself  the  dissecting  room  is  a  labora- 
tory and  until  very  recent  years  it  was  the  only 
laboratory  that  most  of  the  medical  schools  had. 
The  numerous  experiments  in  vivisection,  if  they 
really  took  place,  required  special  arrangements 
and  could  only  be  conducted  in  what  we  now  call 
a  laboratory  of  physiology.  This  is  not  idle  talk 
but  represents  the  realities  of  the  situation.  Other 
laboratories  there  must  have  been.  It  would  be 
quite  impossible  to  conceive  of  a  man  like  Archi- 
medes carrying  on  his  work,  especially  of  the 
application  of  mathematical  principles  to  me- 
chanics, of  the  demonstration  of  mechanical  prin- 
ciples themselves  and  of  the  invention  of  the  many 
interesting  machines  which  he  made,  without  what 
we  call  laboratory  facilities.     The  Ptolemy s  were 

*  The  details  of  what  was  accomplished  in  the  Medical  Department 
at  Alexandria  were  given  to  some  extent  at  least  in  the  lecture  in 
Brooklyn,  but  are  omitted  here  in  order  to  avoid  repetitions  in  the 
printed  copy. 


88         THE  FIRST  MODERN  UNIVERSITY 

interested  in  his  work,  they  supplied  him  with  a 
place  to  do  it,  many  of  his  advanced  students 
at  least  must  have  been  interested  in  this  work 
so  that,  as  I  see  it,  there  was  what  we  would  now 
call  a  physical  laboratory  in  connection  with  his 
teaching  at  the  University  of  Alexandria. 

What  we  know  about  the  development  of 
zoology  under  Erasistratos  and  Herophilos  would 
seem  to  indicate  that  there  must  have  been  such 
special  facilities  for  the  investigation  of  zoologi- 
cal problems  as  we  would  call  a  laboratory  of 
physiology.  A  magnificent  collection  of  plants 
was  made  for  the  university  and  these  were 
studied  and  classified,  and  while  we  hear  nothing 
of  their  dissection,  there  were  at  least  botanical 
rooms  for  methodical  study,  if  not  botanical  lab- 
oratories. Ptolemy's  work  represented  the  cul- 
mination of  astronomical  information  which  had 
been  gathered  for  several  centuries.  This  could 
only  be  brought  together  in  what  we  would  now 
call  an  observatory  and  this  represents  another 
laboratory  of  physical  science.  Our  laboratory 
work,  therefore,  must  have  been  anticipated  to  a 
great  extent.  We  must  not  forget  that  our  uni- 
versity laboratories  are  only  a  couple  of  genera- 
tions old  altogether  and  that  they  represent  a 
very  recent  development  of  educational  work.  It 
is  extremely  interesting,  therefore,  to  find  them 
anticipated  in  germ  at  least,  if  not  in  actuality, 
at  the  first  modern  university  of  which  we  have 
sufficiently  complete  records  to  enable  us  to  ap- 


THE  FIRST  MODERN  UNIVERSITY         89 

predate   just   the   sort   of   work  that   was   being 
done  and  the  ways  and  modes  of  its  education. 

I  think  that  even  this  comparatively  meagre 
description  of  the  first  university  of  which  we  have 
knowledge  makes  it  very  clear  that  Alexandria 
deserves  the  name  of  the  First  Modern  Univer- 
sity. It  resembled  our  own  in  so  many  ways  that 
I,  for  one,  find  it  impossible  to  discover  any  es- 
sential difference  between  them.  At  Alexandria 
they  anticipated  every  phase  of  modern  univer- 
sity education.  Their  literature  was  studied  from 
a  scientific  standpoint.  They  devoted  themselves 
to  an  overwhelming  extent  to  the  study  of  the 
physical  sciences  and  mathematics,  their  pro- 
fessors were  inventors,  developers  of  practical 
applications  of  science,  experts  to  whom  appeal 
was  made  when  important  scientific  questions  had 
to  be  settled,  and  their  teaching  was  done  with 
demonstrations  and  a  laboratory  system  very  like 
our  own.  Nothing  that  I  know  illustrates  better 
the  tendency  of  human  achievement  not  to  rep- 
resent advance  but  to  occur  in  cycles  than  the 
story  of  this  first  modern  university.  That  is 
why  I  have  tried  to  tell  it  to  you  as  an  exquisite 
illustration  of  How  Old  the  New  Is  in  Education. 


MEDIEVAL    SCIENTIFIC 
UNIVERSITIES 


'  Qui    ad   pauca   respiciunt   faciliter  pronuntiant." — An 

Old  Philosopher. 
[Those  who  know  little  readily  pronounce  judgment.] 


MEDIiEVAL    SCIENTIFIC 
UNIVERSITIES  * 

Probably  nothing  is  more  surprising  to  any 
one  who  knows  the  htstory  of  science  and  of  scien- 
tific education  than  the  attitude  of  mind  of  the 
present  generations,  educated  as  they  are  mainly 
along  scientific  lines,  toward  the  supposed  lack  of 
interest  of  preceding  generations  in  science.  Our 
scholars  and  professors  seem  to  be  almost  uni- 
versally of  the  opinion  that  the  last  few  genera- 
tions are  the  first  who  ever  devoted  themselves 
seriously  to  the  study  of  science,  or  who,  indeed, 
were  free  enough  from  superstitions  and  persua- 
sions and  beliefs  of  many  kinds  to  give  themselves 
up  freely  to  scientific  investigation.  In  the  light 
of  what  we  know  or,  perhaps  I  should  say,  what 
we  are  coming  to  know  now  with  regard  to  the 
educational  interests  of  the  men  of  the  various 
times,  this  would  be  an  amusing,  if  it  were  not  an 
amazing,  presumption  on  our  part.  Over  and  over 
again  in  the  world's  history  men  have  been  in- 

*  The  material  for  this  address  was  originally  gathered  for  a 
lecture  in  a  course  on  the  History  of  Education  delivered  to  the 
Sisters  of  Charity  of  Mount  St.  Vincent's,  some  500  in  number; 
teachers  in  the  Catholic  public  schools  of  New  York  City,  and  for  cor- 
responding lectures  to  the  Academy  of  the  Sacred  Heart,  Kenwood. 
The  address  was  delivered  substantially  in  its  present  form  at  the 
Catholic  Club  of  Cornell  University,  under  the  title  "The  Relations 
of  the  Church  to  Science." 

98 


94     MEDIEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES 

terested  in  science,  both  in  pure  science  and  in  ap- 
plied science,  in  the  culture  sciences  and  in  the 
practical  sciences. 

Apparently  men  forget  that  philosophy  is  sci- 
ence and  ethics  is  science  and  metaphysics  is 
scientific  and  logic  is  science  and  there  is  a  sci- 
ence of  language.  Of  course  the  protest  that  will 
be  heard  at  once  is  that  what  we  now  mean  by 
science  is  physical  science.  Even  taking  the  word 
science  in  this  narrower  sense,  however,  how  can 
people  forget  that  our  mathematics  comes  to  us 
from  the  old  Greeks,  that  old  Greek  contribu- 
tions to  medicine  and,  above  all,  to  the  scientific 
side  of  it  still  remain  valuable,  that  physical  sci- 
ence, pure  and  applied,  developed  wonderfully 
at  the  University  of  Alexandria,  that  there  was 
a  beginning  of  chemistry  and  the  great  founda- 
tions of  astronomy  laid  in  the  long  ago,  and  that 
men  evidently  were  quite  as  much  interested  in 
the  problems  of  nature  around  them  as  they  have 
been  at  any  time:  Archimedes  insisting  that  if 
he  only  had  some  place  to  rest  his  lever  he  could 
move  the  world,  inventing  the  screw  pump, 
fashioning  his  great  burning-mirrors,  and  a  little 
later  Heron  inventing  the  first  germ  of  the  turbine 
engine,  while  all  the  time  their  colleagues  and 
contemporaries  were  developing  the  mathematics 
in  connection  with  them,  are  studying  both  pure 
and  applied  science.  It  is  simply  failure  to  state 
in  terms  of  the  present  what  was  accomplished  in 
the    past,    that    has    permitted    people    to    retain 


MEDIEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES     95 

curious    notions    of    the    absence    of    science    in 
antiquity. 

Probably  most  people  would  be  quite  ready 
to  concede,  and  especially  after  even  a  brief  call- 
ing to  their  attention  of  some  educational  facts, 
that  the  old  Greeks  did  enjoy  a  scientific  educa- 
tional development;  it  would  probably  even  be 
admitted  that  the  traditions  of  science  of  various 
kinds  from  Egypt,  from  Chaldea,  from  Babylonia 
point  to  previous  eras  of  scientific  development. 
They  would  probably  still  insist,  however,  that 
there  had  been  a  long  interval  of  utter  neglect 
of  science  lasting  nearly  2,000  years  and  that 
our  interest  is  properly  a  resurrection  of  science- 
study  after  a  long  burial.  They  do  not  even 
hesitate  to  blame  the  educational  authorities  of 
the  interval  for  their  failure  to  occupy  them- 
selves with  scientific  ideas  and  are  prone  to  find 
reasons  of  various  kinds  to  account  for  this  fail- 
ure. As  the  Church  was  dominant  in  education 
during  the  Middle  Ages  this  makes  a  ready  scape- 
goat, and  so  we  have  heard  much  of  the  repres- 
sion of  scientific  study  by  the  ecclesiastical  au- 
thorities, and  the  determined  effort  made  to  keep 
men  from  inquiring  about  the  problems  of  nature 
around  them,  because  this  would  lead  them  to 
think  for  themselves  and  have  doubts  with  regard  to 
faith.  Indeed  this  attitude  of  mind  in  the  history 
of  science  is  so  usual  that  it  is  a  commonplace, 
and  men  who  are  supposed  to  be  scholars  talk  off- 
handedly of  direct  Church  opposition  to  science. 


96    MEDIAEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES 

There  is  no  doubt  at  all  that  the  Church  was 
the  commanding  influence  in  education  during  the 
Middle  Ages.  Whatever  was  studied  was  taken 
up  because  the  Church  authorities  were  interested 
in  it.  Whatever  was  not  studied  was  absent 
from  the  curriculum  because  of  their  lack  of  in- 
terest. While  study  was  magnificently  encour- 
aged there  were  many  subjects,  though  not  near 
so  many  as  is  often  thought,  that  were  repressed. 
The  Church  must  certainlj^  be  held  responsible 
in  eveiy  way  for  the  teaching  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
both  as  regards  its  extent  and  its  limitations* 
The  charters  of  the  universities  were  granted  by 
the  Popes.  The  universities  themselves  usually 
were  cathedral  schools  which  had  developed,  and 
to  which  had  become  attached  various  graduate 
departments.  The  ecclesiastical  authorities  were 
in  control  of  them.  The  rector  of  the  university 
was  usually  the  archdeacon  of  the  cathedral  or  the 
chancellor  of  the  diocese.  The  professors  at  the 
universities  were  practically  all  of  them  in  clerical 
orders,  and  the  great  body  of  the  students  were 
clerics,  in  the  sense  that  they  had  assumed  at 
least  minor  orders  and  were  supposed  to  be  in 
preparation  for  a  clerical  life.  This  was,  indeed, 
the  one  sure  way  to  secure  exemption  from  the 
military  duties  of  the  time  and  to  prevent  inter- 
ference of  various  kinds  by  the  civil  power  with 
the  leisure  necessary  for  study.  No  man  had  any 
essential  rights  in  the  Middle  Ages  except  such 
as  were  conferred  on  him  by  some  organization 


MEDIEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES     97 

to  which  he  belonged,  and  the  clerical  order  was 
particularly  powerful. 

Now  the  interesting  phase  of  the  education 
afforded  by  these  universities  under  ecclesiastical 
control  with  clerical  students  and  professors  con- 
stituting the  large  majority  of  members,  with  the 
influence  of  the  religious  orders  paramount  for 
centuries,  is  that  it  was  entirely  scientific  in  char- 
acter and  largely  occupied  with  the  physical  sci- 
ences, though  the  culture  sciences  formed  the 
basis  of  it.  Huxley,  though  he  is  surely  the  last 
man  of  recent  times  who  would  be  suspected  for  a 
moment  of  exaggerating  the  scientific  significance 
of  mediaeval  education,  recognized  this  fact  very 
well  and  stated  it  very  emphatically.  In  his 
Inaugural  Address  on  Universities  Actual  and 
Ideal,  delivered  as  Rector  of  Aberdeen  Univer- 
sity, after  discussing  the  subject  with  evident  care- 
ful preparation,  he  said: 

"  The  scholars  of  the  mediseval  universities 
seem  to  have  studied  grammar,  logic  and  rhetoric; 
arithmetic  and  geometry;  astronomy,  theology 
and  music.  Thus,  their  work,  however  imperfect 
and  faulty,  judged  by  modern  lights,  it  may  have 
been,  brought  them  face  to  face  with  all  the  lead- 
ing aspects  of  the  many-sided  mind  of  man.  For 
these  studies  did  really  contain,  at  any  rate  in 
embrj^o,  sometimes  it  may  be  in  caricature,  what 
we  now  call  philosophy,  mathematical  and  phys- 
ical science  and  art.  And  I  doubt  if  the  cur- 
riculum of  any  modern  university  shows  so  clear 


98    MEDIAEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES 

and  generous  a  compreliension  of  what  is  meant 
by  culture,  as  this  old  Triviurn  and  Quadrivium 
does."      (Italics  mine.) 

Of  course  Huxley  says,  "  sometimes  it  may  be  in 
caricature."  We  must  not  forget,  however,  that 
first  even  Huxley  hesitates  to  say  that  it  is  carica- 
ture, for  he  knows  how  easy  it  is  to  be  mistaken 
in  our  estimation  of  the  true  significance  of  an 
old-time  mode  of  thought,  and  then,  too,  he  knew 
comparatively  how  little  we  were  sure  of  the  real 
thoughts  and  conclusions  of  these  men  of  the  olden 
time  because  of  defective  sympathy  and  even  de- 
fective knowledge  of  their  work.  Our  knowl- 
edge in  this  matter  has  greatly  increased  since  his 
time.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  more  we  know 
about  these  old  masters  and  the  mediaeval  uni- 
versities the  less  are  we  likely  to  think  of  their 
work  as  lacking  in  seriousness  in  any  sense.  The 
quarter  of  a  century  that  has  elapsed  since  Hux- 
ley so  cogently  urged  this  at  Aberdeen  has 
brought  many  facts  unknown  to  us  before  and 
has  shown  us  what  good  work,  even  in  the  phys- 
ical sciences,  was  accomplished  in  these  old-time 
universities. 

For  instance,  nothing  is  more  common  in  the 
mouths  of  certain  kinds  of  scholars  than  the  ex- 
pressions of  wonder  as  to  why  men  did  not  study 
nature  more  assiduously  before  our  time.  Here 
is  a  magnificent  open  book  full  of  the  most  allur- 
ing lessons  which  any  one  may  study  for  himself, 
and  that  somehow  it  is  presumed  men  neglected 


MEDIEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES     99 

down  to  our  time.  We  are  the  age  of  nature 
students,  and  preceding  times  are  looked  at 
askance  for  having  neglected  the  opportunities 
that  lay  so  invitingly  open  to  them  in  this  subject. 
It  has  always  been  a  wonder  to  me  how  people 
dare  to  talk  this  way.  Our  old  literatures  are  full 
of  observations  on  nature.  In  my  book  on  "  The 
Popes  and  Science  "  I  take  Dante  as  a  typical 
product  of  the  universities  of  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury, and  show  without  any  difficulty  as  it  seems 
to  me,  that  there  is  no  poet  of  the  modern  time 
who  can  draw  figures  from  nature  which  demand 
even  a  detailed  knowledge  of  nature  with  so  much 
confidence  as  Dante.  He  knows  the  most  inti- 
mate details  about  the  birds,  about  many  animals, 
about  the  ways  of  flowers,  about  children,  de- 
scribes some  experiments  in  science,  has  a  wide 
knowledge  of  astronomy  and  in  general  is  fa- 
miliar with  nature  quite  as  much  if  not  more  than 
any  modern  writer  not  esc  professo  a  naturalist. 
He  describes  the  metamorphosis  of  insects,  how 
the  ants  communicate  with  one  another,  knows 
the  secrets  of  the  bees  and  exhibits  wide  knowl- 
edge of  the  secrets  of  bird  life. 

The  presumption  that  people  did  not  study  na- 
ture in  the  olden  time  is  quite  unjustified.  They 
did  not  write  long  books  about  trivial  subjects  of 
nature-study.  They  did  not  conclude  that  be- 
cause they  were  seeing  something  for  the  first 
time,  that  that  was  the  first  time  in  the  world's 
history  it  had  ever  been  seen.     They  were  gentle, 


100     MEDIAEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES 

kindly  scholars  who  assumed  that  others  had 
eyes  and  saw  too,  and  as  fortunately  there  was 
no  printing  press  there  was  not  that  hurried 
rushing  into  print,  with  superficial  observations 
and  still  more  superficial  conclusions,  which  has 
characterized  so  much  of  our  recent  literature  of 
nature-study  and  that  has  been  so  well  dubbed 
"  nature  faking."  Of  course  we  have  had  faking 
of  the  same  kind  in  nearly  everything  else:  we 
have  history  faking  in  our  supposed  historical 
romances,  science  faking  in  our  pseudo-science, 
science-history  faking  in  our  ready  presumption 
that  the  men  of  the  olden  time  could  not  have 
had  our  interests,  and,  above  all — may  I  now 
say  it? — in  our  cheap  conclusion  that  there  must 
have  been  some  reason  for  their  lack  of  interest  in 
science,  and  then  the  assumption  without  any- 
thing further,  that  it  must  have  been  because  of 
the  Church. 

Just  as  soon  as  there  is  question  of  there  having 
been  any  serious  scientific  study  during  the  Mid- 
dle Ages,  in  the  sense  of  observations  in  physical 
science,  investigation  of  the  physical  phenomena 
of  nature  and  the  drawing  of  conclusions  from 
them  and  the  evolving  of  laws,  there  are  a  large 
number  of  people  who  consider  themselves  very 
well  informed,  who  will  at  once  object  that  this 
must  be  quite  absurd,  since  at  this  time  Lord 
Chancellor  Bacon  had  not  as  yet  laid  down  the 
great  foundations  of  the  physical  sciences  in  his 
discussion  of  inductive  reasoning.     I  have  already 


MEDIEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES      101 

ventured  to  suggest,  in  the  address  on  "  The  First 
Modern  University,"  how  utterly  ridiculous  any 
such  notion  is.  I  have  quoted  Lord  Macaulay 
and  Huxley  as  ridiculing  those  who  entertained 
such  an  idea.  Here  I  may  be  permitted  to  recur 
to  the  subject  by  quotations  from  the  same  au- 
thorities. I  have  often  found  that  anything  I 
myself  said  in  this  matter  was  at  once  considered 
as  quite  incredible,  since  my  feelings  were  entirely 
too  favorable  toward  the  Middle  Ages  and  then 
my  religious  affiliations  are  somehow  supposed 
to  unfit  me  for  scientific  thinking.  Fortunately 
Macaulay  and  Huxley  have  expressed  themselves 
in  this  matter  even  more  vigorously  than  I  would 
be  likely  to,  and  so  I  may  simply  quote  them. 

As  Lord  Macaulay  wrote  in  his  well-known 
essay : 

"  The  vulgar  notion  about  Bacon  we  take  to 
be  this,  that  he  invented  a  new  method  of  arriv- 
ing at  truth,  which  method  is  called  induction, 
and  that  he  detected  some  fallacy  in  the  syllogistic 
reasoning  which  had  been  in  vogue  before  his 
time.  This  notion  is  as  well  founded  as  that  of 
the  people  who,  in  the  Middle  Ages,  imagined 
that  Virgil  was  a  great  conjurer.  Many  who  are 
far  too  well  informed  to  talk  such  extravagant 
nonsense  entertain  what  we  think  incorrect  no- 
tions as  to  what  Bacon  really  effected  in  this 
matter." 

Still  more  apposite  is  what  Professor  Huxley 
has  to  say.     Discoursing  on  the  phenomena  of 


102     MEDIAEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES 

organic  nature,  after  warning  his  auditors  not  to 
suppose  that  scientific  investigation  is  "  some 
kind  of  modern  black  art,"  he  adds:  "  I  say  that 
you  might  easily  gather  this  impression  from  the 
manner  in  which  many  persons  speak  of  scientific 
inquiry,  or  talk  about  inductive  and  deductive 
philosophy,  or  the  principles  of  the  '  Baconian 
philosophy.'  To  hear  people  talk  about  the  great 
Chancellor — and  a  very  great  man  he  certainly 
was^ — you  would  think  that  it  was  he  who  had 
invented  science,  and  that  there  was  no  such  thing 
as  sound  reasoning  before  the  time  of  Queen 
EHzabeth. 

"  There  are  many  men  who,  though  knowing 
absolutely  nothing  of  the  subject  with  which  they 
may  be  dealing,  wish  nevertheless  to  damage  the 
author  of  some  view  with  which  they  think  fit  to 
disagree.  What  they  do  is  not  to  go  and  learn 
something  about  the  subject;  .  .  ,  but  they  abuse 
the  originator  of  the  view  they  question,  in  a  gen- 
eral manner,  and  wind  up  by  saying  that,  '  After 
all,  you  know,  the  principles  and  method  of  this 
author  are  totally  opposed  to  the  canons  of  the 
Baconian  philosophy.'  Then  everybody  applauds, 
as  a  matter  of  course,  and  agrees  that  it  must  be 
so." 

Lord  Bacon  himself  so  little  understood  true 
science  that  he  condemned  Copernicanism  because 
it  failed  to  solve  the  problems  of  the  universe,  and 
condemned  Dr.  Gilbert,  the  great  founder  in 
Magnetism,  whose  work  was  the  best  exemplifica- 


MEDIEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES      103 

tion  of  inductive  science  of  that  time.  Of  course 
Bacon  did  not  invent  science  nor  its  methods. 
He  was  only  a  pubhcist  popularizing  them.  They 
had  existed  in  the  minds  of  all  logical  thinkers 
from  the  beginning.  His  great  namesake,  Friar 
Bacon,  much  better  deserves  to  be  thought  a 
pioneer  in  modern  physical  science  than  the 
chancellor, — and  he  was  a  mediaeval  university  man. 
We  are  prone  to  think  of  the  old-time  universities 
as  classical  or  literar\^  schools  with  certain  limited 
post-graduate  features,  more  or  less  distantly 
smacking  of  science.  The  reason  for  this  is  easy 
to  understand.  It  is  because  out  of  such  classical 
and  literary  colleges  our  present  universities,  with 
their  devotion  to  science,  were  developed  or  trans- 
formed during  the  last  generation  or  two.  It 
is  to  be  utterly  ignorant  of  mediaeval  education, 
however,  to  think  that  the  classical  and  literary 
schools  are  types  of  university  work  in  the  Middle 
Ages.  The  original  universities  of  the  thirteenth 
and  fourteenth  centuries  paid  no  attention  to 
language  at  all  except  inasmuch  as  Latin,  the 
universal  language,  was  studied  in  order  that 
there  might  be  a  common  ground  of  understand- 
ing. Latin  was  not  studied  at  all,  however,  from 
its  literary  side;  to  style  as  such  the  professors  in 
the  old  mediaeval  universities  and  the  writers  of 
the  books  of  the  time  paid  no  attention.  Indeed 
it  was  because  of  this  neglect  of  style  in  litera- 
ture and  of  the  niceties  of  classical  Latin  that  the 
universitv^  men  of  recent  centuries  before  our  own, 


104.     iMEDI^VAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES 

so  bitterly  condemned  the  old,  mediaeval  teachers 
and  were  so  utterly  unsympathetic  with  their 
teaching  and  methods.  We,  however,  have  come 
once  more  into  a  time  when  style  means  little,  in- 
deed, entirely  too  little,  and  when  the  matter  is 
supposed  to  be  everything,  and  we  should  have 
more  sympathy  with  our  older  forefathers  in  edu- 
cation who  were  in  the  same  boat.  We  have  in- 
herited traditions  of  misunderstanding  in  this  mat- 
ter, but  we  should  know  the  reasons  for  them 
and  then  they  will  disappear. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  exactly  the  same  thing 
happened  in  our  modern  change  of  university 
interests  during  the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century  as  happened  in  the  latter  half  of  the 
fifteenth  century  in  Italy,  and  in  the  next  century 
throughout  Europe.  With  the  fall  of  Constan- 
tinople the  Greeks  were  sent  packing  by  the  Turks 
and  they  carried  with  them  into  Italy  manu- 
scripts of  the  old  Greek  authors,  examples  of  old 
Greek  art  and  the  classic  spirit  of  devotion  to 
literature  as  such.  A  new  educational  movement 
termed  the  study  of  the  humanities  had  been 
making  some  way  in  Italy  during  the  preceding 
half-century  before  the  fall  of  Constantinople,  but 
now  interest  in  it  came  with  a  rush.  The  clergy- 
men, the  nobility,  even  the  women  of  the  time 
became  interested  in  the  New  Learning,  as  it  was 
called.  Private  schools  of  various  kinds  were 
opened  for  the  study  of  it,  and  everybody  con- 
sidered that  it  was  the  one  thing  that  people  who 


MEDI/EVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES     105 

wanted  to  keep  up  to  date,  smart  people,  for 
they  have  always  been  with  us,  should  not  fail 
to  be  familiar  with.  The  humanities  became  the 
fashion,  just  as  science  became  the  fashion  in  the 
nineteenth  century.  Fashion  has  a  wonderfully 
pervasive  power  and  it  runs  in  cycles  in  intel- 
lectual matters  as  well  as  in  clothes. 

The  devotees  of  the  Xew  Learning  demanded  a 
place  for  it  in  the  universities.  Universitj^  facul- 
ties perfectly  confident,  as  university  faculties 
always  are,  that  what  they  had  in  the  curriculum 
was  quite  good  enough,  and  conservative  enough 
to  think  that  what  had  been  good  enough  for 
their  forefathers  was  surely  good  enough  also 
for  this  generation,  refused  to  admit  the  new 
studies.  For  a  considerable  period,  therefore, 
the  humanities  had  to  be  pursued  in  institutions 
apart  from  the  universities.  Indeed  it  was  not 
until  the  Jesuits  showed  how  valuable  classical 
studies  might  be  made  for  developmental  pur- 
poses and  true  education  that  they  were  admitted 
into  the  universities. 

Note  the  similarity  with  certain  events  in  our 
own  time  in  all  this.  Two  generations  ago  the 
universities  refused  to  admit  science.  They  were 
training  men  in  their  undergraduate  departments 
by  means  of  classical  literature.  They  argued 
exactly  as  did  the  old  mediaeval  universities  with 
regard  to  the  new  learning,  that  they  had  no 
place  for  science.  Science  had  to  be  learned,  then, 
in  separate  institutions  for  a  time.     The  scientific 


106     MEDIEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES 

educational  movement  made  its  way,  however, 
until  finally  it  was  admitted  into  the  university 
curricula.  Now  we  are  in  the  midst  of  an  edu- 
cational period  when  the  classics  are  losing  in 
favor  so  rapidly  that  it  seems  as  though  it  would 
not  be  long  before  they  would  be  entirely  re- 
placed by  the  sciences,  except,  in  so  far  as  those 
are  concerned  who  are  looking  for  education  in 
literature  and  the  classic  languages  for  special 
purposes. 

It  will  be  interesting,  then,  to  trace  the  story 
of  the  old  medieeval  universities  as  far  as  the  sci- 
ence in  their  curriculum  was  concerned,  because 
it  represents  much  more  closely  than  we  might 
have  imagined,  or  than  is  ordinarily  thought,  the 
preceding  phase  of  education  to  the  classical 
period  which  we  have  seen  go  out  of  fashion  to 
so  great  an  extent  in  the  last  two  generations. 
We  shall  readily  find  that  at  least  as  much  time 
Was  devoted  in  the  mediaeval  universities  to  the 
physical  sciences  as  in  our  own,  and  that  the  cul- 
ture sciences  filled  up  the  rest  of  the  curriculum. 
Philosophy,  which  occupied  so  prominent  a  place 
in  older  university  life,  was  not  only  a  culture 
science,  but  physical  science  as  well,  as  indeed  the 
name  natural  philosophy,  which  remained  almost 
down  to  our  day,  attests. 

Physical  science  was  not  the  sole  object  of  these 
mediaeval  institutions  of  learning,  but  they  were 
thoroughly  scientific.  The  main  object  of  the 
universities  in  the  olden  time  was  to  secure  such 


MEDIEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES     107 

discussion  of  the  problems  of  man's  relation  to 
the  universe,  to  his  Creator,  to  his  fellow-creatures 
and  to  the  material  world  as  would  enable  him 
to  appreciate  his  rights  and  duties  and  to  use 
his  powers.  Huxley  declared  that  the  trivium  and 
quadrivium,  the  seven  liberal  arts  studied  in  the 
mediaeval  universities,  probably  demonstrate  a 
clearer  and  more  generous  comprehension  of  what 
is  meant  by  culture  than  the  curriculum  of 
any  modern  university.  Language  was  learned 
through  grammar,  the  science  of  language.  Rea- 
soning was  learned  through  logic,  the  science 
of  reasoning;  the  art  of  expression  through  rheto- 
ric, a  combination  of  art  and  science  with  applica- 
tions to  practical  life.  Mathematics  was  studied 
with  a  zeal  and  a  success  that  only  those  who 
know  the  history  of  mediaeval  mathematics  can  at 
all  appreciate.  Cantor,  the  German  historian  of 
mathematics,  in  hundreds  of  pages  of  a  large 
volume,  has  told  the  story  of  the  development  of 
mathematics  during  the  centuries  before  the 
Renaissance,  that  is  from  the  thirteenth  to  the 
fifteenth,  in  a  way  that  makes  it  very  clear  that 
the  teaching  at  the  universities  in  this  subject 
was  not  dry  and  sterile,  but  eminently  productive, 
successful  in  research,  and  with  constant  addi- 
tions to  knowledge  such  as  live  universities  ought 
to  make. 

Then  there  was  astronomy,  metaphysics,  theol- 
ogy, music  and  law  and  medicine.  The  science 
of  law  was  developed  and,  above  all,  great  col- 


108     iAlEDI.EVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES 

lections  of  laws  made  for  purposes  of  scientific 
study.  Of  astronomy  every  one  was  expected  to 
know  much,  of  medicine  we  shall  have  considerable 
to  say  hereafter,  but  in  the  meantime  it  is  well 
to  recall  that  these  mediaeval  centuries  maintained 
a  high  standard  of  medical  education  and  brought 
some  wonderful  developments  in  the  sciences 
allied  to  medicine  and  above  all  in  their  applica- 
tions to  therapeutics.  Surgery  never  reached  so 
high  a  plane  of  achievement  down  to  our  own 
time,  as  during  the  period  when  it  was  studied 
so  faithfully  and  developed  so  marvellously  at 
the  mediaeval  universities.  It  was  inasmuch  as 
a  knowledge  of  physics  was  needed  for  the  de- 
velopment of  metaphysics  that  the  mediaeval 
schoolmen  devoted  themselves  to  the  study  of 
nature.  They  turned  with  as  much  ardor  and 
devotion  as  did  Herbert  Spencer  in  the  nineteenth 
century,  to  the  accumulation  of  such  information 
with  regard  to  nature  as  would  enable  them  to 
draw  conclusions,  establish  general  principles  and 
lay  firm  foundations  for  reasonings  with  regard 
to  the  creature  and  the  Creator.  It  is,  above  all, 
this  phase  of  mediaeval  teaching  work,  of  the 
schoolmen's  ardent  interest  that  is  misunder- 
stood, often  ignored  and  only  too  frequently  mis- 
represented in  the  modern  time. 

For  instance,  in  the  discussion  of  the  status  of 
matter  in  the  universe  the  scholastics  and  notably 
Thomas  Aquinas  had  come  to  the  conclusion 
that   matter    was    absolutely    indestructible.      He 


MEDIEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES      109 

even  went  so  far  as  to  say  that  man  could  not 
destroy  it,  and  God  would  not  annihilate  it. 
Nihil  ojnnino  in  nihilum  redigetur — nothing  at 
all  will  ever  be  reduced  to  nothingness,  was  his 
dictum  as  the  conclusion  of  a  course  of  lectures  on 
this  subject.  He  saw  the  changes  in  matter  all 
round  him  that  were  supposed  to  be  destructive, 
the  burnings,  the  vaporizations,  the  solutions,  the 
putrefactions  and  all  the  rest,  but  he  knew  that 
these  only  brought  changes  in  matter  and  not 
destruction  of  the  underlying  substance.  For 
him,  as  for  all  the  scholastic  philosophers,  matter 
was  composed  of  two  principles,  as  they  were 
called.  One  of  these  was  prime  matter  and  the 
other  form.  To  prime  matter,  one  of  these,  mat- 
ter or  substance  owed  all  its  negative  qualities, 
inertia  and  the  hke.  To  form,  the  dynamic  ele- 
ment or  principle,  it  owed  all  its  individuating 
qualities.  Prime  matter  was  the  same  in  all 
things.  Form  was  the  energy  or  bundle  of  ener- 
gies, the  dynamic  principle,  as  we  have  said,  which 
entering  into  prime  matter,  made  the  different 
kinds  of  matter  that  we  speak  of. 

It  is  extremely  interesting  to  compare  this  old 
scholastic  teaching  with  the  modern  ideas  of  the 
composition  of  matter  and  especially  the  notions 
which  have  come  to  us  from  researches  in  physical 
chemistry  in  recent  years.  Our  scientists  no 
longer  believe  that  we  have  some  eighty  different 
elements,  essentialh'  different  kinds  of  matter,  that 
cannot  by  any  chance  or  process  be  changed  one 


110     MEDIAEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES 

into  another.  We  have  seen  one  form  of  ele- 
mentary matter  changing  into  another,  helium 
emanations  becoming  radium,  have  heard  of  Pro- 
fessor Ramsay's  transmutation  of  various  ele- 
ments, and  have  about  come  to  the  conclusion 
that  in  the  radio-active  substances  we  have  a  won- 
derful transmuting  power.  A  prominent  Ameri- 
can professor  of  chemistry  declared  not  long  since 
that  he  would  like  to  treat  a  large  quantity  of 
lead  ore  in  order  to  extract  from  it  all  the  silver 
which  so  constantly  occurs  in  connection  with  it 
in  the  natural  state,  and  then  having  put  the  lead 
ore  aside  for  a  score  of  years,  would  like  to  ex- 
amine it  again,  confident  that  he  would  find  traces 
of  silver  in  it  once  more,  which  had  developed 
as  a  consequence  of  the  radio-activity  present  in 
the  substance  and  which  is  constantly  changing 
lead  into  silver  in  small  quantities.  Newton's 
declaration,  when  he  saw  crystals  of  gold  in  con- 
nection with  copper,  that  gold  had  been  developed 
from  the  copper,  seemed  very  foolish  a  century 
ago,  but  no  one  would  consider  it  so  at  the  pres- 
ent moment. 

We  are  prone  to  think  that  these  old  mediaeval 
philosophers  accepting  to  some  extent  at  least  the 
philosopher's  stone  with  its  supposed  capacity 
for  changing  baser  metals  into  precious,  and  with 
their  acceptance  of  the  transmutation  of  sub- 
stances, cannot  have  had  any  real  scientific  bent 
of  mind.  We  are  coming  to  the  realization,  how- 
ever, that  in  many  ways  by  pure  reasoning,  in 


MEDIEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES     111 

conjunction  with  such  obsei'vation  as  they  had  at 
hand,  they  anticipated  our  most  recent  conclu- 
sions in  very  marvellous  ways.  We  know  now 
that  radium,  or  at  least  radio-active  substances, 
represent  the  philosopher's  stone  of  the  olden 
time.  We  are  not  surprised  at  the  transmuta- 
tion of  metals  and  of  substances,  on  the  contrary, 
we  are  looking  for  it. 

I  remember  once  stating  the  old  theory  of  mat- 
ter and  form  to  a  distinguished  professor  in  chem- 
istry in  this  country,  and  he  was  struck  by  the 
similarity  of  it  to  what  are  the  present  accepted 
ideas  of  the  composition  of  matter.  He  asked 
why  this  teaching  was  not  more  generally  known. 
I  had  to  tell  him  that  in  every  Catholic  school  of 
philosophy,  it  was  taught  as  a  basic  doctrine,  and 
that  far  from  being  concealed  it  was  the  very 
touchstone  of  Catholic  philosophic  teaching,  and 
had  often  been  the  subject  of  deprecation  and 
contemptuous  remarks  on  the  part  of  those  who 
thought  that  it  represented  somewhat  foolish  old- 
fashioned  teaching  handed  down  to  us  from  the 
backwardness  and  abysm  of  time. 

We  have  demonstrated  the  indestructibility  of 
matter  in  modern  times  by  experimental  methods. 
The  mediaeval  schoolmen  reached  similar  con- 
clusions, however,  by  strict  reasoning  from  the 
premises  of  observation  that  they  had  in  the  olden 
times.  We  may  be  apt  to  think  that  they  knew 
very  little  about  nature  and  the  details  of  physical 
science,  but  that  will  be  only  because  we  do  not 


112     MEDIAEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES 

know  their  great  books.  Albertus  Magnus  is  a 
typical  example  of  a  renowned  teacher  of  the 
thirteenth  century  who  was,  however,  at  the  same 
time  a  highly  respected  member  of  his  order, 
holding  important  official  positions  in  it  and 
thoroughly  honored  and  respected  by  his  ecclesi- 
astical superiors  so  that  he  was  made  a  bishop,  yet 
writing  volumes  of  observation  with  regard  to 
nearly  every  phase  of  physical  science.  A  list  of 
his  books  reads  like  a  section  of  a  catalogue  of 
a  library  of  physical  science.  I  have  told  the 
story  of  his  career  in  the  second  series  of  "  Catho- 
lic Churchmen  in  Science,"  but  the  names  of  his 
volumes  are  sufficient  to  show  what  sort  of  work  he 
was  doing.  He  has  volumes  on  chemistry,  botany, 
on  physics,  on  cosmography,  on  animal  locomo- 
tion, on  respiration,  on  generation  and  corruption, 
on  age  and  death*  and  life,  on  phases  of  psychol- 
ogy, the  soul,  sense  and  sensation,  memory,  sleep, 
the  intellect  and  many  another  subject.  Those 
who  think  that  there  was  no  attention  paid  to 
science  in  the  Middle  Ages  must  know  nothing 
at  all  of  Albertus  Magnus'  work. 

Above  all,  those  who  talk  thus  are  entirely 
ignorant  of  all  that  Roger  Bacon  did.  Roger 
Bacon  himself  was  a  student  of  the  University 
of  Paris.  He  was  a  professor  there.  He  corre- 
sponded with  the  scientists  of  Europe  quite  as 
frequently  or  at  least  as  significantly  as  pro- 
fessors of  the  modern  time  do  with  each  other. 
Students  submitted  their  discoveries  to  him.     We 


MEDIAEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES     113 

have  Peregrinus'  letter  to  him  with  regard  to 
magnetism  and  electricity  and  know  of  others. 
We  have  his  own  books,  in  which  he  treats  not 
only  the  scientific  problems,  but  inventions  and 
applied  science  of  all  kinds.  At  the  present  time 
his  interest  in  aeronautics  has  a  special  appeal  to 
us.  He  was  sure  that  men  would  sometime  make 
a  successful  airship.  He  even  thought  that  he 
could  make  one  himself,  but  his  experiments 
proved  unsuccessful.  His  theory  of  it  was  very 
interesting.  In  his  work  "De  Secretis  Artis  et 
Naturae  Operibus"  he  writes  that  a  machine 
could  be  constructed  in  which  a  man  sitting  in 
the  centre  might  move  wings  by  means  of  a  crank 
and  thus,  quite  after  the  fashion  of  birds,  fly 
through  the  air.  It  was  he  who  wrote  that  the 
time  would  come  when  carriages  would  move  along 
the  roads  without  men  or  horses  to  pull  them.  At 
the  moment  he  was  experimenting  with  gun- 
powder. He  realized,  therefore,  that  sometime 
men  would  harness  explosives  and  use  them  for 
motor  purposes.  That  is,  of  course,  just  what  we 
are  doing  with  gasolene. 

He  suggested  that  boats  would  run  over  the 
water  without  oars  and  without  sails.  He  was 
anticipating  our  motor  boat.  He  taught  that 
light  moves  with  a  definite  rate  of  velocity,  though 
that  fact  was  not  demonstrated  for  several  cen- 
turies after  his  time.  He  worked  out  most  of 
the  theory  of  lenses  as  we  have  it  at  the  present 
time.    He  was  sure  that  experiment  and  observ^a- 


114     MEDIEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES 

tion  constituted  the  only  way  by  which  knowledge 
of  nature  could  be  obtained.  In  this  he  was  but 
following  his  great  teacher  Albertus  Magnus,  who 
insisted  that  in  natural  philosophy  experiment 
alone  brought  sure  knowledge ;  "  Edcperimentwm 
solum  certificat  in  talibus,"  are  his  own  words. 
Roger  Bacon's  devotion  to  mathematics  shows 
how  thoroughly  scientific  was  the  trend  of  his 
mind.  Without  mathematics  he  was  sure  that  one 
could  not  reach  scientific  knowledge,  or  that  what 
one  did  get  was  without  certainty.  Some  of  his 
expressions  in  this  matter  are  strikingly  modern. 
It  is  no  wonder  that  his  writings  and  teachings 
were  so  great  a  surprise  to  his  generation  that 
the  Pope  ordered  him  to  write  out  his  knowledge 
in  books.  Without  this  order  we  would  not  have 
had  Roger  Bacon's  great  works,  for  his  vow  of 
poverty  voluntarily  taken  forbade  him  to  be  pos- 
sessed of  sufficient  money  to  enable  him  to  pur- 
chase writing  materials,  which  were  then  very 
expensive. 

Indeed  the  mathematics  of  the  mediseval  uni- 
versities is  the  best  proof  of  the  seriousness  of 
their  devotion  to  science  and,  may  it  also  be  said, 
of  their  success.  Cantor,  in  his  "  History  of 
Mathematics,"  and  he  is  the  great  authority  in  the 
matter,  devotes  nearly  100  pages  of  his  second 
volume  to  the  mathematicians  of  the  thirteenth 
centurj^  alone,  two  of  whom,  Leonard  of  Pisa 
and  Jordanus  Nemorarius,  did  so  much  in  arith- 
metic, in  the  theory  of  numbers,  and  in  geometry, 


MEDIAEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES     115 

as  to  work  a  revolution  in  mathematics.  They 
had  great  disciples  like  John  of  Holy  wood  (prob- 
ably a  town  near  Dublin) ,  Johannes  Campanus 
and  others.  No  wonder  that  at  the  end  of  the 
century  Roger  Bacon  said,  "  For  without  mathe- 
matics nothing  worth  knowing  in  philosophy  can 
be  obtained,"  and  again,  "  for  he  who  knows  not 
mathematics  cannot  know  any  other  science;  what 
is  more,  he  cannot  discover  his  own  ignorance  or 
find  its  proper  remedy."  The  fourteenth  and 
fifteenth  centuries  saw  even  more  important  work 
done.  Cantor  has  half  a  dozen  men  in  the  fif- 
teenth century  to  whom  he  devotes  more  than 
twenty-five  pages  each.  How  the  place  of  this 
in  mediaeval  teaching  can  have  escaped  the  notice 
of  those  who  insist  so  much  on  the  neglect  of 
science  during  the  Middle  Ages,  is  hard  to  under- 
stand. This  alone  would  convict  them  of  igno- 
rance of  what  they  are  talking  about. 

The  educational  genius  of  the  great  university 
century,  the  thirteenth,  the  man  who  influenced  his 
contemporaries  and  succeeding  generations  more 
than  any  other,  was  Thomas  Aquinas,  to  whom 
the  Church,  for  his  knowledge  and  goodness,  gave 
the  title  of  saint.  If  any  further  proof  that 
these  centuries  were  interested  in  science  were 
needed,  or  that  the  universities  in  which  he  was 
the  leading  light  as  scholar  and  professor  in  the 
thirteenth  century,  and  as  the  great  master  to 
whom  all  looked  reverentially  after,  were  de- 
veloping scientific  studies,  it  would  be  found  in 


116     MEDIAEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES 

his  works.  Philosophy  is  developed  scientifically 
in  his  "  Contra  Gentes  "  and  theology,  scientifi- 
cally in  his  great  "  Summa."  It  is  the  very  aus- 
terity of  the  scientific  qualities  of  these  books 
that  have  made  them  forbidding  for  many  modern 
readers,  who,  therefore,  have  failed  to  understand 
the  scientific  spirit  of  the  time.  St.  Thomas 
Aquinas,  however,  was,  as  I  suggested  at  the  be- 
ginning of  this,  deeply  interested  in  every  form 
of  information  with  regard  to  what  we  now  call 
physical  science.  He  evidently  drank  in  with 
avidity  all  that  had  been  observed  with  regard  to 
living  creatures  and,  when  we  come  to  analyze  his 
works  with  care  and  read  his  books  with  the  devo- 
tion of  his  own  students,  we  find  many  anticipa- 
tions of  what  is  most  modern  in  our  science. 

The  indestructibility  of  matter,  matter  and 
form,  that  is  the  doctrine  of  the  unity  of  the 
basis  of  matter,  the  conservation  of  energy  in  the 
sense  that  the  forms  of  matter  change  but  do  not 
disappear,  all  these  were  commonplaces  in  his 
thought  and  teaching.  I  have  recently  had  occa- 
sion to  point  out  how  close  he  came  to  that 
thought  in  modern  biology  which  is  probably  con- 
sidered to  be  one  of  our  most  modern  contribu- 
tions to  the  theory  of  evolution.  It  is  expressed 
by  the  formula  of  Herbert  Spencer,  "  Ontogeny 
recapitulates  phylogeny."  According  to  this  the 
completed  human  being  repeats  in  the  course  of 
its  development  the  history  of  the  race,  that  is 
to  say,  the  varying  phases  of  foetal  development 


MEDIEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES      117 

in  the  human  embryo,  from  the  single  cell  in  which 
it  originates  up  to  the  perfect  being  as  it  is  born 
into  the  world,  retrace  the  history  by  which  from 
the  single-cell  being  man  has  gradually  developed. 
The  whole  theory  of  evolution  is  supposed  by 
many  people  to  be  modern,  but  of  course  it  is  not. 
This  particular  phase  of  it,  however,  is  thought 
surely  to  be  modern.  It  is  sometimes  spoken  of 
as  the  fundamental  law  of  biogeny.  In  recent 
years  serious  doubts  have  been  thrown  on  it,  but 
with  that  we  have  nothing  to  do  here. 

It  is  very  curious  to  find,  however,  that  St. 
Thomas,  in  his  teaching  with  regard  to  the  origin 
and  development  of  the  human  being,  says,  almost 
exactly,  what  the  most  ardent  supporters  of  this 
so-called  fundamental  biogenetic  law  proclaimed 
in  recent  years.  He  says  that  "  the  higher  a  form 
is  in  the  scale  of  being  and  the  farther  it  is  re- 
moved from  mere  material  form,  the  more  inter- 
mediate forms  must  be  passed  through  before  the 
finally  perfect  form  is  reached.  Therefore,  in 
the  generation  of  animal  and  man — these  having 
the  most  perfect  forms — there  occur  many  inter- 
mediate forms  in  generations  and  consequently 
destruction,  because  the  generation  of  one  being 
is  the  destruction  of  another."  St.  Thomas  does 
not  hesitate  to  draw  his  conclusions  from  this  doc- 
trine without  hesitation.  He  proclaims  that  the 
human  material  is  first  animated  by  a  vegetative 
soul  or  principle  of  life,  and  then  by  an  animal 
soul   and  only  ultimately,   when  the  matter  has 


118     MEDIEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES 

been  properly  prepared  for  it,  by  a  rational  soul. 
He  said: 

"  The  vegetative  soul,  therefore,  which  is  first 
in  the  embryo,  while  it  lives  the  life  of  a  plant,  is 
destroyed,  and  there  succeeds  a  more  perfect  soul, 
which  is  at  once  nutrient  and  sentient,  and  for 
that  time  the  embryo  lives  the  life  of  an  animal: 
upon  the  destruction  of  this  there  succeeds  the 
rational  soul,  infused  from  without." 

His  discussion  of  the  position  of  the  Church 
and  of  faith  to  science  is  extremely  interesting, 
because  here  once  more  he  faces  a  modern  prob- 
lem. Aquinas  was  very  sensitive  with  regard  to 
the  imposition  upon  Christians  of  things  which 
supposedly  they  had  to  believe  on  the  score  of 
faith,  though  they  were  really  not  of  faith  at  all. 
Some  of  his  expressions  in  this  matter  are  very 
strong  and  he  was  especially  fond  of  quoting  St. 
Augustine,  who  was  very  emphatic  on  this  point. 
One  of  these  typical  passages  deserves  to  find  a 
place  here  because,  while  the  word  philosophy  is 
used,  it  is  evidently  science  in  our  modern  sense  of 
the  word  that  is  intended.  Augustine  talks  of  what 
the  philosophers  have  said  of  the  heavens  or  the 
stars  and  the  motion  of  the  sun  and  moon,  mean- 
ing of  course  the  astronomers,  who  were  in  the  old 
days  classed  as  natural  philosophers.  This  pas- 
sage, then,  which  contains  the  opinions  of  the  two 
greatest  teachers  of  the  Church  in  the  West  may 
well  serve  as  a  guide  for  those  who  are  interested 
in  science,  and  a  warning  for  those  who  would 


MEDIEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES     119 

obtrude  faith  too  far  into  scientific  questions,  and 
thus  limit  investigation  and  hamper  that  freedom 
of  intellect  which  is  so  important  for  the  develop- 
ment of  science.  St.  Thomas  said  in  his  introduc- 
tion to  the  reply  to  Master  John  of  Vercelli: 

"  I  have  endeavored  to  reply  but  with  this  pro- 
test at  the  outset,  that  many  of  these  articles  do 
not  pertain  to  the  teachings  of  faith,  but  rather 
to  the  dogmas  of  the  philosophers.  But  it  works 
a  great  injury  either  to  assert  or  deny  as  belong- 
ing to  sacred  doctrine  such  things  as  do  not  bear 
upon  the  doctrine  of  piety.  For  Augustine  says, 
'  When  I  hear  certain  Christians  ignorant  of  those 
things  (namely,  what  philosophers  have  said  of  the 
heavens,  or  the  stars,  or  the  motion  of  the  sun 
and  moon)  or  misunderstanding  them,  I  look 
with  patience  upon  such  men:  nor  do  I  see  any 
reason  to  hinder  them,  when  of  thee.  Lord  Creator 
of  all  things,  they  do  not  believe  unworthy  things, 
if  perhaps  they  be  ignorant  of  the  structure,  and 
condition  of  corporal  creatures.  But  they  are 
a  hindrance  if  they  think  these  things  belong  to 
the  very  doctrine  of  piety;  and  more,  pertina- 
ciously, dare  to  affirm  that  of  which  they  are  igno- 
rant.' But  that  they  may  be  the  cause  of  injury 
Augustine  shows.  '  It  is  very  disgraceful,'  he  says, 
'  and  pernicious  and  especially  to  be  avoided,  that 
a  Christian  speaking  of  these  things  as  though 
according  to  Christian  teaching  should  so  rave 
that  any  infidel  may  hear;  so  that,  as  it  is  said, 
seeing    him    altogether    in    the    wrong,    he    may 


120     MEDIEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES 

scarcely  contain  his  mirth.  And  it  is  not  so  hurt- 
ful that  one  man  should  be  seen  to  err,  as  that 
our  writers  are  believed  by  those  who  are  without 
[the  Church]  to  have  such  opinions,  and  to  the 
ruin  of  those  whose  salvation  is  our  care  they  are 
scorned  and  contemned  as  unlearned.'  Whence  it 
seems  safer  to  me  that  those  things  which  philoso- 
phers have  commonly  held,  and  are  not  repugnant 
to  our  faith,  should  neither  be  asserted  as  dogmas 
of  faith,  although  at  times  they  may  be  intro- 
duced under  the  names  of  the  philosophers,  nor 
so  denied  as  contrary  to  the  faith,  as  to  give  occa- 
sion to  the  wise  of  this  world  of  contemning  the 
teaching  of  the  faith." 

Is  it  any  wonder  that  Professor  Saintsbury 
of  the  University  of  Edinburgh,  whose  training 
in  the  old  Scotch  universities  has  given  him  a 
breadth  of  sympathy  not  common  in  our  time,  and 
whose  wide  knowledge  of  the  literature  of  that 
period  as  well  as  its  philosoplw  and  education,  and 
whose  training  in  the  discussion  of  the  criticism 
of  all  time  in  his  "  History  of  Criticism "  has 
made  his  opinion  of  special  value,  should  have 
sympathetically  turned  to  these  old  teachers  and 
deprecated  a  little  bitterly  the  modern  attitude 
towards  them?    He  said: 

"  Yet  there  has  always  in  generous  souls  who 
have  some  tincture  of  philosophy,  subsisted  a 
curious  kind  of  sympathy  and  yearning  over  the 
work  of  these  generations  of  mainly  disinterested 
scholars,    who,    whatever   they   were,    were   thor- 


MEDIEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES     121 

ough,  and  whatever  they  could  not  do,  could 
think.  And  there  have  even,  in  these  latter  days, 
been  some  graceless  ones  who  have  asked  whether 
the  science  of  the  nineteenth  century,  after  an 
equal  interval,  will  be  of  any  more  positive  value — 
whether  it  will  not  have  even  less  comparative 
interest  than  that  which  appertains  to  the  scholas- 
ticism of  the  thirteenth." 

I  have  always  considered,  however,  that  the  easi- 
est way  to  show  the  modern  student  of  science 
how  supremely  scientific  in  his  temper  was  St. 
Thomas,  is  to  quote  for  him  the  passage  from 
that  great  teacher  with  regard  to  the  Resurrection. 
In  every  way,  that  is  typically  modern.  St. 
Thomas  faces  the  question  that  after  death  men's 
bodies  decay,  the  material  of  them  is  taken  up  and 
used  in  many  other  living  beings,  so  that  how  can 
we  dare  to  believe  that  we  shall  rise  again  on 
the  last  day  M^ith  the  same  bodies  that  we  now 
have?  St.  Thomas  discusses  this  knotty  problem 
straightforwardly  and  solves  it  more  satisfactorily, 
even  for  all  the  knowledge  that  we  have  of  it  now, 
than  has  ever  been  done. 

"  What  does  not  bar  numerical  unity  in  a  man 
while  he  lives  on  uninterruptedly  clearly  can  be 
no  bar  to  the  identity  of  the  arisen  man  with  the 
man  that  was.  In  a  man's  body  while  he  lives 
there  are  not  only  the  same  parts  in  respect  of 
matter,  but  also  in  respect  of  species.  In  respect 
of  matter  there  is  a  flux  and  reflux  of  parts.  Still 
that  fact  does  not  bar  the  man's  numerical  unity. 


122     MEDIAEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES 

from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  his  hfe.  The 
form  and  sj^ecies  of  the  several  parts  continue 
throughout  hfe,  but  the  matter  of  the  parts  is  dis- 
solved by  the  natural  heat,  and  new  matter  ac- 
crues through  nourishment.  Yet  the  man  is  not 
numerically  different  b}^  the  difference  of  his 
component  parts  at  different  ages,  although  it  is 
true  that  the  material  composition  of  the  man  at 
one  stage  of  his  life  is' not  his  material  composi- 
tion at  another.  Addition  is  made  from  without 
to  the  stature  of  a  boy  without  prejudice  to  his 
identity,  for  the  boy  and  the  adult  are  numerically 
the  same  man." 

The  most  important  feature  of  the  scientific 
teachings  of  the  mediaeval  universities  has  been  left 
till  the  last  because  it  is  the  clinching  confirma- 
tion of  a  claim  that  these  were  essentially  scientific 
universities.  It  is  to  be  found  in  the  position  of 
the  medical  schools  and  the  state  of  medical  teach- 
ing during  the  Middle  Ages.  So  curiously  has 
the  history  of  education  been  written,  and,  above 
all,  of  medical  education,  that  to  most  people  this 
would  seem  to  be  surely  the  department  of  educa- 
tion which  would  prove  just  the  opposite.  We 
have  heard  so  much  about  Church  opposition 
to  anatomy  and  Church  opposition  to  sur- 
gery, of  its  repression  of  the  development  of 
medical  science  and  even  medical  art,  because  the 
Church  wanted  to  make  people  believe  in  the 
value  of  masses,  relics  and  prayers — and  pay  for 
them — ^that  most  people  are  quite  sure  that  there 


MEDIEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES     123 

was  no  medical  education  of  any  significance  in 
the  Middle  Ages.  Nothing  shows  more  clearly 
how  viciously  the  history  of  education  has  been 
written  than  the  existence  of  such  false  impres- 
sions. Not  only  are  they  utterly  unfounded,  but 
they  are  based  on  supreme  ignorance  of  one  of 
the  greatest  periods  in  the  history  of  medicine 
that  we  have  in  all  the  world's  history.  Not  only 
were  the  schools  excellent  and  the  teaching  pro- 
gressive, but  there  was  a  fine  development  of 
medical  science  and,  above  all,  of  surgery.  Sur- 
gery is  supposed  to  be  particularly  the  depart- 
ment of  medicine  that  did  not  develop.  We 
have  learned  better  in  recent  years,  and  now  we 
know  that  there  was  no  greater  period  in  the 
history  of  surgery  than  that  from  1200  to  1400 
when,  alas!  following  so-called  history,  we  used 
to  think  there  was  no  surgery. 

The  first  question  that  any  one  who  knows  any- 
thing about  the  subject  asks  with  regard  to  the 
progress  in  medicine  of  a  particular  time  or  coun- 
try is,  what  was  the  standard  of  its  medical  edu- 
cation? What  was  the  standard  of  admission  to 
the  medical  schools,  how  many  years  of  medical 
studies  were  required?  To  this  question  the  Mid- 
dle Ages  have  a  wonderful  answer  that  has  not 
been  realized  until  recent  years.  We  now  have 
Frederick  II's  famous  law  for  the  regulation  of 
the  practice  of  medicine  and  the  maintaining  of 
standards  in  medical  schools.  This  law  was  pro- 
mulgated in  the  Two  Sicilies,  the  southern  part  of 


124     MEDIEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES 

Italy  and  Sicily  proper.  According  to  it  no  one 
was  allowed  to  practise  medicine  who  had  not 
studied  for  four  years  in  a  recognized  university 
and  then  practised  for  one  year  with  a  physician 
before  receiving  his  license  to  practise  by  him- 
self. If  he  wanted  to  practise  surgery  he  had  to 
spend  an  additional  special  year  in  the  study  of 
anatomy.  The  university  medical  schools  were 
graduate  schools  and  did  not  admit  a  student 
unless  he  had  completed  the  undergraduate 
Q0Urse. 

Of  course  it  may  be  thought  that  this  was  due 
entirely  to  the  great  Emperor  Frederick,  who  was 
far  ahead  of  his  time  and  who,  therefore,  antici- 
pated the  progress  of  medical  teaching  by  many 
centuries.  We  have,  however,  manj^  other  docu- 
ments which  illustrate  the  state  of  medical  educa- 
tion at  this  time.  The  charters  of  the  medical 
schools  were  granted  by  the  Popes  and  were  very 
explicit  in  what  they  required  of  the  new  faculties 
in  order  that  standards  might  be  maintained.  Pope 
John  XXII,  for  instance,  at  the  beginning  of  the 
fourteenth  century,  issued  charters  for  medical 
schools  at  Perugia  and  Cahors.  He  required  that 
there  should  be  four  years  of  medical  study  and 
three  years  of  preliminary  work.  He  went  into 
details  to  secure  the  maintenance  of  standards. 
The  original  faculties  of  these  schools  would  all 
have  to  be  doctors  in  medicine  from  either  Paris 
or  Bologna,  and  it  must  be  their  duty  to  estab- 
lish in  the  new   schools  the   standards   of   their 


MEDIEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES      125 

Almse  Matres.  Examinations  were  to  be  conducted 
under  oath,  men  were  not  to  be  granted  degrees 
unless  they  deserved  them,  the  votes  of  professors 
rejecting  candidates  or  graduating  them  were  to 
be  under  oath-bound  secrecy,  so  as  to  have  them 
absolutely  free  from  personal  influence,  and  every 
precaution  was  taken  to  secure  the  highest  pos- 
sible standards. 

It  was  as  a  consequence  of  their  direct  attach- 
ment to  these  old  mediaeval  medical  schools  that  the 
medical  schools  founded  here  in  America  in  the  six- 
teenth century  at  once  began  with  high  standards. 
Three  years  of  preliminary  work  was  required  and 
four  j^ears  of  medicine.  In  the  United  States  no 
preliminary  requirements  were  demanded;  and  for 
a  full  century  only  two  years  of  medical  study, 
which  really  consisted  of  but  two  terms  of  four 
months  each,  was  the  requirement.  The  old 
mediaeval  medical  schools  were  originally  at- 
tached to  the  universities,  and  it  is  a  well-known 
rule  in  the  history  of  education  that  whenever 
the  medical  schools  are  independent  then  stand- 
ards are  sure  to  be  low.  Whenever  the  univer- 
sity controls  the  medical  school  and  it  is  a  real 
graduate  department,  then  standards  of  admission 
and  of  graduation  are  properly  maintained.  It  is 
surprising  to  think  that  the  old  mediaeval  uni- 
versities should  be  able  to  give  us  lessons  in  this 
matter  and  should  put  us  to  shame  for  our  slip- 
shod nineteenth-century  medical  education  in  the 
United  States,  but  this  is  a  simple  fact.    Contrast 


126     MEDIEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES 

the  South  American  countries  where  the  mediaeval 
traditions  with  which  they  were  founded  con- 
strained them  to  give  four,  five  and  even  six  years 
to  medicine  before  granting  a  degree.  Go  a  step 
further  and  see  how  devoted  to  science  were  the 
Universities  of  Lima  (Peru)  and  Mexico,  cen- 
turies before  we  did  any  serious  scientific  work 
in  the  United  States,  and  all  because  they  were 
direct  descendants  of  the  old  mediaeval  univer- 
sities. 

The  feeling  of  certain  modern  educators  would 
be  that  it  did  not  matter  how  much  time  these 
mediaeval  universities  gave  to  medicine  since, 
after  all,  they  had  nothing  of  any  value  to  teach 
in  medicine.  Even  educated  people  have  been  led 
to  believe  that  there  was  nothing  in  medicine  and, 
above  all,  in  the  surgery  of  those  times  to  be  of 
any  value.  Probably  no  opinion  is  more  foolishly 
ignorant  or  more  ridiculously  absurd  than  this, 
though  it  is  a  commonplace  among  people  who 
are  sure  they  know  something  about  history,  and, 
above  all,  among  those  who  consider  themselves 
authorities  in  the  history  of  education,  and  of  the 
development  of  science.  In  surgery  a  magnificent 
development  was  made  at  this  time  of  which  I  shall 
have  something  to  say  later.  In  medicine  there 
was  much  less  anticipation  of  our  modern  prog- 
ress, but  even  here  there  was  much  that  demands 
our  respect.  One  of  the  university  men,  Simon 
of  Genoa,  worked  out  the  dosage  of  opium  and 
indicated    its    uses.      Anodyne    drugs    were    em- 


MEDIAEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES     127 

ployed  much  more  generally  and  successfully  than 
we  are  apt  to  think ;  various  methods  of  anaesthesia, 
one  of  them  by  inhalation,  of  which  I  shall  say 
more  when  talking  of  surgery,  were  invented  and 
a  large  number  of  drugs  and  simples  were  ex- 
perimented with.  Down  at  ^lontpellier  Bernard 
Gordon  suggested  red  light  for  smallpox. 

This  is  not  much  of  a  record,  perhaps,  but  we 
must  not  forget  what  Professor  Richet,  the  Di- 
rector of  the  Physiological  Laboratorj''  of  the 
University  of  Paris,  said  not  long  since  in  an 
article  on  "  Physicians  and  Medicine "  in  La 
Revue  de  Deux  Mondes.  It  is  startling  but 
chasteningly  true.  "  The  therapeutics  of  any 
generation  has  alwaj^s  been  quite  absurd  to  the 
second  succeeding  generation."  Indeed  it  is  one 
of  the  almost  disheartening  things  in  the  history 
of  medicine  to  see  how  treatments  come  in,  are 
widel}''  accepted  and  hailed  as  great  advances  in 
therapeutics  and  then  gradually  disappear.  They 
bled  a  great  deal  and  they  purged  not  a  little, 
in  accordance  with  the  teaching  in  the  medical 
schools  of  the  universities  of  the  thirteenth  and 
fourteenth  centuries,  but  then  they  bled  a  great 
deal  and  purged  a  great  deal  more,  according  to 
the  teaching  of  the  medical  schools  of  the  begin- 
ning of  the  nineteenth  centurj^  There  have  been 
many  periods  in  the  interval  when  purging  and 
bleeding  were,  and  very  properly,  not  nearly  so 
popular. 

It  was  in  preventive  medicine  particularly  that 


128     MEDIEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES 

these  progressive  medical  men  of  the  early  uni- 
versity days  secured  their  triumphs.  They  made 
separate  hospitals  for  the  lepers  all  over  Europe, 
and  by  segregation  succeeded  in  wiping  out  that 
disease,  though  it  was  as  widely  spread  as  tuber- 
culosis in  our  day  and  presented  just  as  serious 
a  problem.  Indeed  the  most  encouraging  in- 
centive for  our  present  tuberculosis  campaign  is 
drawn  by  many  authorities  from  the  experience 
with  leprosy,  which  was  eventually  obliterated  as 
an  endemic  popular  disease,  by  strict  segregation 
methods.  These  same  generations  created  spe- 
cial hospitals  for  erysipelas  and  thus  prevented 
the  spread  of  this  disease  in  the  ordinary  hospitals, 
where  it  used  to  be  so  serious  a  factor  for  morbid- 
ity if  not  for  mortality.  Men  forgot  this  later 
and  the  disease  became  a  serious  problem  once 
more  in  all  the  hospitals  of  even  a  generation  ago. 
The  hospital  organization  worked  out  by  these 
university  men  is  the  finest  jewel  in  the  crown 
of  their  accomplishment  as  applied  scientists. 
Pope  Innocent  III,  himself  a  University  of  Paris 
man,  founded  the  Santo  Spirito  Hospital  in  Rome, 
summoning  for  that  purpose  the  best  authority 
on  hospitals  in  Europe,  Guy  of  Montpellier,  and 
then  required  the  bishops  of  the  world  to  erect 
similar  hospitals  in  their  dioceses.  This  was  done, 
and  it  is  Virchow,  whose  sympathies  were  any- 
thing but  favorable  to  the  Popes,  who  has  been 
most  loud  in  his  praise  of  the  wonderful  hospital 
organization  of  these  centuries.     Every  town  in 


MEDI.^VAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES     129 

Europe  of  5,000  inhabitants  or  more  had  a  hos- 
pital, and  there  were  hospitals  in  many  of  the 
smaller  towns. 

It  would  be  easy  to  think  that  these  hospitals 
were  rudely  built,  were  badly  ventilated,  were 
ill-arranged  and,  above  all,  were  likely  to  be 
houses  for  the  perpetuation  of  disease  rather 
than  for  the  regaining  of  health.  We  are  prone 
to  think  that  we  are  the  first  generation  to  solve 
the  problem  of  hospital  construction.  We  know 
what  poorly-constructed,  badly-planned  institu- 
tions were  the  hospitals  of  three  generations  ago. 
What,  then,  must  have  been  the  hospital  build- 
ings of  centuries  ago?  This  argument  has  no 
place  in  history;  the  worst  hospitals  in  the  world 
and  in  history  were  erected  at  the  end  of  the 
eighteenth  and  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  Some  of  the  best  hospitals  ever  con- 
structed date  from  the  thirteenth,  fourteenth 
and  fifteenth  centuries.  This  was  a  time  when 
great  architects  were  successfully  solving  the 
construction  problems  for  cathedrals,  municipal 
buildings,  colleges  and  the  like,  and  they  solved 
them  quite  as  successfully  for  hospitals.  Some  of 
these  hospitals  were  models  in  their  way.  One  of 
them,  built  toward  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury, by  the  sister  of  St.  Louis,  Marguerite  of 
Bourgogne,  with  its  large  windows  high  in  the 
walls,  in  single-story  buildings,  with  arrange- 
ments for  the  segregation  of  patients,  with  the 
kitchens   in   a   separate   building,    with   beautiful 


130     MEDIJ^VAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES 

frescoes  on  the  walls  so  that  patients'  minds 
might  be  occupied  and  not  left  to  their  own  often 
disturbing  devices  as  with  our  bare  wall,  with  a 
stream  of  running  water  divided  so  as  to  pass  on 
both  sides  of  the  hospital,  is  a  model  of  con- 
struction for  all  time. 

It  was  in  surgery  rather  than  medicine,  how- 
ever, that  these  great  mediaeval  university  medi- 
cal schools  left  their  impress  upon  the  history  of 
medicine.  During  the  thirteenth,  fourteenth 
and  fifteenth  centuries  we  have  a  series  of  won- 
derful teachers  of  surgery,  whose  achievements 
we  know  not  by  tradition  nor  by  fragments  of 
their  writings,  but  by  the  text-books  which  they 
wrote  and  which  constituted  the  teaching  for 
generations  and  sometimes  for  centuries  after 
their  time.  Gurlt,  the  great  German  historian 
of  surgery,  devotes  some  300  pages  of  the  first 
volume  of  his  "  History  of  Surgery "  to  the 
surgical  accomplishments  of  the  INIiddle  Ages. 
He  even  protests  that  space  compels  him  to  ab- 
breviate the  story  of  what  these  old-time  masters 
of  surgery  did  to  lay  the  foundation  of  modern 
surgical  practices.  It  is  a  commonplace  in  the 
American  writing  of  history  that  there  was  no 
surgery  at  this  time. .  President  White  says  that, 
"  for  over  a  thousand  years  surgery  was  consid- 
ered dishonorable  until  the  German  Emperor 
Wenceslas,  in  1405,  ordered  that  it  should  be 
held  in  honor  again."  The  two  centuries  imme- 
diately preceding  this  date  represent  the  great- 


MEDIAEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES      131 

est  period  in  the  history  of  surgery  down  to  our 
own  time,  and  because  of  its  originahty  probably 
greater  in  real  achievement  than  even  our  vaunted 
age. 

It  is  sometimes  the  custom  to  say  that  this  sur- 
gery was  derived  from  the  Arabs.  This  is  sup- 
posed to  rob  the  mediaeval  universities  of  any 
prestige  that  maj^  come  to  them' for  this  marvel- 
lous progress.  Gurlt,  however,  in  his  "  History 
of  Surgery,"  in  his  sketch  of  Roger  (Ruggiero), 
who  was  the  first  of  the  great  surgeons  of  the  thir- 
teenth century,  who  taught  at  the  Italian  univer- 
sities, says:  "Though  Arabian  writings  on  sur- 
gery had  been  brought  over  to  Italy  by  Con- 
stantine  Africanus  100  years  before  Roger's  time, 
these  exercised  no  influence  over  Italian  surgery  in 
the  next  century,  and  there  is  not  a  trace  of  the 
influence  of  the  Arabs  to  be  found  in  Roger's 
work."  When  Gurlt  says  this  it  is  because  he  has 
deliberately  studied  the  question,  and  we  can  be 
absolutely  sure,  therefore,  that  whatever  we  find 
in  surgery  at  this  time  comes  to  us  from  these 
great  mediaeval  universities  themselves,  and  is  not 
imported  from  abroad. 

After  Roger,  who  was  at  Bologna  for  a  time 
after  having  been  in  Paris,  and  who  then  became 
a  Papal  physician,  there  are  a  series  of  great 
names  that  deserve  to  be  mentioned.  Four 
names  are  connected  together  by  association  as 
master  and  pupil  for  what  may  be  termed  four 
generations  of  surgical  progress.     From  the  birth 


132     MEDIEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES 

of  the  first  to  the  death  of  the  last  represents 
about  100  years.  That  100  years  is  a  gloriously 
fruitful  century  in  the  history  of  surgery.  The 
first  of  the  group  is  William  of  Salicet,  of  whom 
Professor  Chfford  Allbutt,  the  Regius  Professor 
of  Physic  at  the  University  of  Cambridge,  in 
his  address  on  the  "  Historical  Relations  of  Medi- 
cine and  Surgery  to  the  End  of  the  Sixteenth 
Century,"  delivered  by  special  invitation  at  the 
Congress  of  Arts  and  Sciences  at  the  World's 
Fair  in  St.  Louis  in  1904,  has  the  highest  praise. 
Allbutt  says:  "Like  Lanfranc  and  the  other  great 
surgeons  of  the  Italian  tradition,  and  unlike 
Franco  and  Pare,  William  had  the  advantage 
of  the  liberal  university  education  of  Italy;  but 
like  Pare  and  Wurtz,  he  had  a  large  practical  ex- 
perience in  hospitals  and  on  the  battlefield  and 
fully  recognized  that  surgery  cannot  be  learned 
from  books  only."  Allbutt  praises  him  and 
rightly  for  his  careful  notes  of  cases  and  then  tells 
us  something  of  his  accomplishments  in  surgery. 
He  says:  "  WiUiam  discovered  that  dropsy  may 
be  due  to  a  durities  renum  six  centuries  before 
Bright;  he  substituted  the  knife  for  the  Arabist 
abuse  of  the  cautery;  he  investigated  the  causes  of 
the  failure  of  healing  hy  first  intention  (Italics 
ours),  he  described  the  danger  of  wounds  of  the 
neck;  he  sutured  divided  nerves;  he  forwarded  the 
diagnosis  of  suppurative  diseases  of  the  hip;  and 
he  referred  chancre  and  phagedaena  to  their 
proper  causes." 


MEDI.^VAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES     133 

His  pupil  Lanfranc  equalled  his  master  in  devo- 
tion to  practical  surgery  and  surpassed  him  in  his 
development  of  the  great  science  of  medicine. 
Pagel,  the  well-known  German  historian  of  medi- 
cine, saj^s  that,  in  his  text-book  Lanfranc  has  ex- 
cellent chapters  on  the  affections  of  the  eyes,  the 
ears  and  mouth,  the  nose,  even  the  teeth,  and  treats 
of  hernia  in  a  very  practical  common-sense  way. 
He  warns  against  the  radical  operation  and  says, 
in  words  that  come  home  to  us  with  strange  fa- 
miliarity at  the  present  time,  that  many  surgeons 
decide  on  operations  too  easily,  not  for  the  sake 
of  the  patient  but  for  the  sake  of  the  money  that 
is  in  them.  Lanfranc's  discussion  of  cystotomy, 
Pagel  characterizes  as  prudent  but  rational,  for  he 
considers  that  the  operations  should  not  be  feared 
too  much  but  not  delayed  too  long.  In  patients 
suffering  from  the  inconvenience  which  comes 
from  large  quantities  of  fluid  in  the  abdomen  he 
Q^dy'ises  paracentesis  abdominis,  but  warns  against 
putting  the  patient  in  danger  from  such  an  opera- 
tion without  due  consideration.  Pagel  says  that 
Lanfranc  must  be  considered  as  one  of  the  great- 
est surgeons  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  the  real 
establisher  of  the  prestige  of  the  French  school  of 
surgery  which  maintained  its  prominence  down  to 
the  nineteenth  century 

Lanfranc  had  been  invited  to  Paris  to  take  the 
chair  of  surgery,  because  the  authorities  of  the 
university  wanted  to  add  prestige  to  the  medical 
school,  which  was  not  as  well  known  as  the  school 


134     MEDIJi:VAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES 

of  philosophy.  The  fame  of  William  of  Salicet 
had  spread  throughout  academic  Europe,  and  so 
Lanfranc  was  offered  the  chair  at  the  University 
of  Paris  in  order  to  carry  his  master's  message 
there.  The  next  in  the  succession  of  great  teach- 
ers at  Paris  was  Mondeville,  who  found  less  to 
do  in  an  original  way  than  his  master  Lan- 
franc and  his  protomaster  William,  but  who  ac- 
complished much  for  surgery.  All  that  he  did 
was  thrown  into  the  shade  by  what  was  accom- 
plished for  succeeding  generations  by  the  next  in 
the  series,  Guy  de  Chauliac,  who  studied  for  a 
time  in  Paris  under  Mondeville,  though  his  early 
medical  education  was  obtained  at  Montpellier,  but 
had  also  had  the  advantage  of  spending  a  year  in 
Italy  at  the  various  medical  schools  which  were 
famous  at  that  time.  These  two  incidents,  Lan- 
franc's  invitation  to  Paris  to  be  a  teacher  there 
from  Italy  more  than  a  thousand  miles  away,  and 
Guy  de  Chauliac's  studies  in  all  the  important 
universities  of  Europe  of  the  time  before  he  took 
up  his  own  work,  illustrate  better  than  any  words 
of  ours  can  the  ardent  enthusiasm  for  study,  the 
thoroughgoing  anticipation  of  our  most  modern 
methods  in  education.  Mondeville,  like  Chauliac, 
had  made  very  nearly  the  same  round  of  the 
universities.  It  is  a  custom,  not  a  chance  inci- 
dent, that  we  have  to  deal  with  here. 

Guy  de  Chauliac  has  been  given  the  name  of  the 
father  of  modern  surgery.  Any  one  who  wants  to 
see  why  should  read  the  text-book  on  surgery  that 


MEDIAEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES      135 

Chauliac  wrote  and  which  for  two  centuries  after 
his  time  (he  died  about  the  middle  of  the  four- 
teenth century)  continued  to  be  the  most  used 
text-book  of  surgery  in  the  medical  schools  of 
Europe.  Chauliac,  for  instance,  describes  the 
treatment  of  conditions  within  all  three  of  the 
important  cavities  of  the  body,  the  skull,  the 
thorax  and  the  abdomen.  Pagel  has  three  closely- 
printed  pages  in  small  type  of  titles  alone  of  sub- 
jects in  surgery  which  Chauliac  treated  with  dis- 
tinction. His  description  of  instruments  and 
methods  of  operation  is  especially  full  and  sug- 
gestive. He  describes  the  passage  of  a  catheter, 
for  instance,  with  the  accuracy  and  complete 
technique  of  a  man  who  knew  the  difficulties  of  it 
in  complicated  cases  from  practical  experience. 
He  even  recognizes  the  dangers  for  the  patient 
from  the  presence  of  anatomical  anomalies  of 
various  kinds  and  describes  certain  of  the  more  im- 
portant of  them.  He  has  very  exact  indications 
for  trephining.  For  empyema  he  advises  opening 
of  the  chest  and  indicates  where  and  how.  He 
says  very  frankly  that  in  wounds  of  the  abdomen 
the  patient  will  die  if  the  intestines  have  been 
perforated  and  left  untreated,  and  he  describes  a 
method  of  suturing  wounds  of  the  intestines  in 
order  to  save  the  patient's  life. 

His  treatment  of  bone  surgery  and  of  fractures 
and  dislocations  is  especially  interesting  and 
shows  how  far  these  very  practical  men  had 
reached  conclusions  resembling  those  of  our  time. 


136     MEDI/EVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES 

It  was  in  hernia  particularly  that  Chauliac's  sur- 
gical genius  manifested  itself.  He  operated  for 
hernia  and  its  radical  cure,  placing  the  patient  in 
an  exaggerated  Trendelenberg  position,  head  down, 
feet  fastened  to  a  slanting  board.  For  such  work 
anatomy  had  to  be  known  very  well,  and  Chauliac 
had  made  special  studies  at  Bologna  under  Ber- 
truccio,  the  successor  of  Mondino.  Chauliac  once 
declared  that  the  surgeon  ignorant  of  anatomy 
carves  the  human  body  as  a  blind  man  would 
carve  wood.  Of  ulcers  of  all  kinds  Chauliac 
writes  from  a  knowledge  evidently  derived  from 
experience.  Of  ulcers  due  to  cancer  he  has  much 
to  say.  He  considers  them  hopeless  unless  they 
can  be  excised  at  a  very  early  stage  and  the  in- 
cision followed  by  caustics.  For  carcinomatous 
ulcers  there  is  not  much  that  we  can  do  beyond 
this,  even  in  our  day.  It  is  no  wonder  that  the 
great  historians  of  medicine  have  been  unanimous 
in  praise  of  this  wonderful  scientific  genius.  For 
my  lecture  on  "  Old-Time  Medical  Education," 
before  the  Johns  Hopkins  Historical  Club,  last 
year,  I  quoted  some  of  those  opinions.  Portal, 
for  instance,  says  of  him,  "  It  may  be  averred 
that  Guy  de  Chauliac  said  nearly  everything  that 
modern  surgeons  say  and  that  his  work  is  of  in- 
finite price,  but  unfortunately  too  little  pon- 
dered." Malgaigne  declares  Chauliac's  "  Chir- 
urgia  Magna,"  "  A  masterpiece  of  learned  and 
luminous  writing."  Pagel  says,  "  Chauliac  rep- 
resents  the   summit   of   attainment   in   mediaeval 


MEDIAEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES     137 

surgery,  and  he  laid  the  foundation  of  that  pri- 
macy in  surgery  which  the  French  maintained 
down  to  the  nineteenth  century."  Professor  Chf- 
ford  AUbutt  says  of  Chauliac's  treatise,  "  This 
great  work  I  have  studied  carefully  and  not  with- 
out prejudice;  yet  I  cannot  wonder  that  Fallopius 
compared  the  author  with  Hippocrates  or  that 
John  Freind  calls  him  the  prince  of  surgeons. 
The  book  is  rich,  aphoristic,  orderly  and  precise." 
In  a  word  it  has  all  the  qualities  that  are  usually 
said  to  be  lacking  in  the  work  of  mediaeval  scien- 
tists, and  it  is  a  standing  reproach  to  those  who 
ignorantly  have  made  so  Httle  of  the  work  of 
these  wonderful  men  of  the  olden  time,  who  an- 
ticipated so  many  of  the  features  of  our  modern 
medicine  and  surgery  that  we  are  prone  to  think 
of  as  representing  climaxes  in  human  progress, 
indications  of  a  wonderful  human  evolution. 

Two  other  names  of  great  professors  of  surgery 
deserve  to  be  mentioned  because  they  make  it 
very  clear  that  this  wonderful  development  of  sur- 
gery was  not  confined  to  France  and  Italy,  but 
made  itself  felt  all  over  Europe.  One  of  these  is 
John  Ypermann,  a  surgeon  of  the  early  four- 
teenth century,  of  whom  almost  nothing  was 
known  until  about  twenty-five  years  ago,  when 
the  Belgian  historian,  Broeck,  brought  to  light 
his  works  and  gathered  some  details  of  his  life. 
He  was  a  pupil  of  Lanfranc,  and  at  the  end  of 
the  thirteenth  century  studied  at  Paris  on  a 
scholarship  voted  by  his  native  town  of  Ypres, 


138     MEDIEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES 

which  provided  maintenance  and  tuition  fees  for 
him  at  the  great  French  university  expressly  in 
order  that  he  might  become  expert  in  surgery. 
We  are  likely  to  think  of  Ypres  as  an  unimpor- 
tant town,  but  it  was  one  of  the  great  industrial 
centres  of  Europe  and  one  of  the  most  populous, 
busy  towns  of  Flanders  in  the  Middle  Ages,  noted 
for  its  manufacture  of  linens  and  fine  laces.  The 
famous  Cloth  Hall,  erected  in  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury, one  of  the  most  beautiful  architectural  monu- 
ments in  Europe,  and  one  of  the  finest  buildings 
of  its  kind  in  the  world,  was  the  result  of  the 
same  spirit  that  sent  Ypermann  to  Paris. 

After  his  return  Ypermann  settled  down  in  his 
native  town  and  obtained  great  renown  not  only 
at  home,  so  that  in  that  part  of  the  country  an 
expert  surgeon  is  still  spoken  of  as  an  Ypermann, 
but  he  became  famous  throughout  all  the  Teu- 
tonic countries.  He  is  the  author  of  two  books 
in  Flemish.  One  of  these  is  on  medicine.  Pagel 
calls  it  an  unimportant  compilation.  The  terms 
that  occur  in  it,  however,  are  enough  to  show  us 
how  much  more  than  we  are  likely  to  think,  these 
old  masters  in  medicine  discussed  problems  that 
are  still  puzzling  us.  He  treats  of  dropsy,  rheu- 
matism, under  which  occur  the  terms  coryza  and 
catarrh,  icterus,  phthisis  (he  calls  the  tuberculous 
tysiken),  apoplexy,  epilepsy,  frenzy,  lethargy, 
fallen  palate,  cough,  shortness  of  breath,  lung 
abscess,  hemorrhage,  blood-spitting,  liver  abscess, 
hardening  of  the  spleen,  affections  of  the  kidney, 


MEDIEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES     139 

bloody  urine,  diabetes,  incontinence  of  urine, 
dysuria,  strangury,  gonorrhea  and  involuntary 
seminal  emissions — all  these  terms  are  quoted  di- 
rectly from  Pagel. 

His  work  in  medicine,  however,  is  as  nothing 
compared  to  his  writings  on  surgery.  A  special 
feature  of  his  book  is  the  presence  of  seventy 
illustrations  of  instruments  of  the  most  various 
kinds,  together  with  a  plate  showing  the  anatomical 
features  of  the  stitching  of  a  wound  in  the  head. 
Even  Pagel's  brief  account  of  its  contents  will 
be  a  source  of  never-ending  surprise  for  those  who 
think  that  surgery  has  developed  entirely  in  our 
time.  Even  in  this  work  on  surgery,  however, 
there  are  many  things  that  we  now  treat  under 
medicine.  As  this  gives  us  an  opportunity  to 
show  how  much  more  of  medicine  was  known  at 
this  time  than  is  usually  thought,  I  venture  to 
quote  some  of  Pagel's  brief  resume  of  the  contents 
of  a  single  chapter.  This  is  a  chapter  devoted 
to  intoxications,  which  includes  the  effect  of  can- 
tharides  as  well  as  alcohol,  and  treats  of  the  bites 
of  snakes,  scorpions  and  of  the  fatal  effects  of 
wounds  due  to  the  bite  of  mad  dogs. 
,  The  other  great  surgeon  and  surgical  writer  of 
the  time,  for  there  must  have  been  many  dis- 
tinguished surgeons  and  only  a  few  writers,  if 
we  can  trust  to  common  experience  in  that  mat- 
ter, was  John  Ardern,  an  English  surgeon.  He 
was  educated  in  Montpellier,  practised  for  a  time 
in  France,   then   settled   for   some  years   in   the 


140     MEDIEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES 

small  town  of  Newark  in  Nottinghamshire,  and 
then  for  nearly  thirty  years  in  London.  His 
"  Practice  of  Surgery,"  as  yet  existing  only  in 
manuscript,  is  another  one  of  these  wonderful  con- 
tributions to  the  applied  sciences  of  anatomy  and 
medicine  at  a  time  when  such  applications  are  often 
supposed  to  have  been  absent.  He  was  an  expert 
operator  and  had  a  wide  reputation  for  his  suc- 
cess in  the  treatment  of  diseases  of  the  rectum. 
He  was  the  inventor  of  a  new  clyster  apparatus. 
Daremberg,  the  medical  historian,  who  saw  a 
copy  of  Ardern's  manuscript  in  St.  John's  Col- 
lege, Oxford,  says  that  it  contained  numerous 
illustrations  of  instruments  and  operations.  We 
fortunately  possess  an  excellent  manuscript  copy 
in  the  Surgeon  General's  Library  at  Washington, 
and  sometime  it  is  hoped  this  will  be  edited  and 
published. 

The  most  interesting  feature  of  the  work  of  all 
of  these  men  is  their  dependence  on  personal  ob- 
servation and  not  on  authority.  Guy  de  Chau- 
liac's  position  in  this  matter  can  be  very  well  ap- 
preciated from  his  criticism  of  John  of  Gaddes- 
den's  book  in  which  he  bewails  the  blind  following 
of  those  who  had  gone  before.  His  bitterest 
reproach  for  many  of  his  predecessors  was  that, 
"  They  followed  one  another  like  cranes,  whether 
for  fear  or  love  he  would  not  say."  Pagel  praises 
Ypermann  for  the  well-marked  striving  which  he 
has  noted  in  him  to  free  himself  from  the  bondage 
of  authority,  and  because  most  of  his  therapeutic 


MEDIAEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES     141 

descriptions  rest  upon  his  own  experience.  Wil- 
liam of  Salicet,  at  the  beginning  of  this  great 
period  of  surgery,  had  insisted  that  notes  of  cases 
were  the  most  valuable  sources  of  wisdom  in 
medicine  and  surgery.  The  last  of  them,  Ardern, 
gave  statistics  of  his  cases  and  was  quite  as  proud 
as  any  modern  surgeon  of  the  large  number  that 
he  had  operated  on.  He  gives  these  carefully 
and  accurately. 

I  have  dwelt  on  the  medical  side  of  these  uni- 
versities mainly,  of  course,  because  this  is  more 
familiar  to  me  as  a  historian  of  medicine  than 
their  work  in  other  scientific  departments,  but  also 
to  a  great  extent  because  the  medical  schools 
gathered  unto  themselves  nearly  all  the  scientific 
knowledge  of  the  time.  Botany,  mineralogy, 
climatology,  meteorology  were  all  studied  for  the 
sake  of  what  could  be  learned  from  them  for  the 
benefit  of  medicine.  Even  astronomy  which  was 
then  the  old  astrology,  was  cultivated  seriously, 
because  of  the  supposed  effect  of  the  stars  on 
human  constitutions.  For  this  we  surely  cannot 
blame  these  mediaeval  students  of  science  since 
four  centuries  later  Galileo  and  even  Kepler 
were  still  making  horoscopes  for  their  patrons  and 
laying  down  laws  from  astronomy  that  were  sup- 
posed to  be  applicable  to  medicine.  Even  Coper- 
nicus studied  astronomy  and  medicine  side  by  side 
and  this  combination  of  studies  was  not  at  all 
infrequent. 

The  medical  schools,  then,  are  the  real  index  of 


142     MEDIJi:VAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES 

the  serious  interest  of  the  mediaeval  universities 
in  science.  Our  scientific  departments  in  modern 
universities  have  developed  other  interests,  because 
of  various  applications  that  these  have  to  life  and 
its  concerns.  Always  in  scientific  universities  ap- 
plied science  is  sure  to  encroach  upon  the  domain 
of  pure  science,  and  no  one  knows  that  better  than 
we  do,  for  we  have  been  bewailing  the  presence 
of  machine  shops  and  boiler  factories  on  the  uni- 
versity grounds.  The  old  universities  did  not 
teach  applied  mechanics  or  engineering,  but  that 
does  not  mean  that  these  subjects  were  not  taught. 
There  were  special  technical  schools  conducted  by 
the  gilds  by  means  of  apprenticeship  and  the 
journeyman  training,  which  enabled  them  to  teach 
those  who  cared  to  have  it  all  the  knowledge 
necessary  for  construction  work  of  various  kinds. 
The  wonderful  architectural  engineering  ex- 
hibited in  the  cathedrals,  university  buildings,  town 
halls  and  castles  of  this  time,  and  the  magnificent 
bridges,  some  of  which  are  still  in  existence,  show 
us  that  the  technical  subjects  were  by  no  means 
neglected.*  Our  mediaeval  forefathers  in  educa- 
tion had  the  wisdom  not  to  let  the  technical  sub- 
jects interfere  with  pure  science  too  much,  as  they 
inevitably  do  whenever  the  two  are  brought  too 
closely  together.  Culture  is  always  overshadowed 
by  the  practical,  but  not  to  the  ultimate  benefit  of 
the  race. 

The   proof   for  us   here   in  America,   close   at 

*  See  Address  on  "  Ideal  Education  of  the  Masses." 


MEDIAEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES     143 

hand,  that  these  universities  of  the  Middle  Ages 
were  thoroughly  scientific  in  spirit  and  not  only 
capable  of,  but  actually  active  and  successful  in 
scientific  investigation,  is  to  be  found  in  our 
earliest  American  universities.  We  are  prone  to 
think,  because  of  the  curiously  defective  way  in 
which  our  histories  of  education  have  been  written, 
that  the  only  things  worth  while  talking  about  in 
the  origins  of  education  here  in  America  are  to 
be  found  in  English  America.  Recent  investiga- 
tions have  shown  how  utterly  deceived  we  were 
by  foolish  self-conceit  in  this  matter.  Long  be- 
fore the  English-American  universities  were 
founded,  and  still  longer  before  they  began  to  do 
any  serious  work  in  education,  there  were  im- 
portant universities  having  literally  thousands  of 
students  in  attendance  in  the  Spanish- American 
countries.  The  Universitj'-  of  Mexico  and  the 
University  of  Lima  in  Peru  were  both  founded 
about  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century.  Har- 
vard came  nearly  a  century  later,  Yale  a  full 
century  and  a  half,  Princeton  more  than  two 
centuries.  The  contrast  between  our  English- 
American  institutions  of  learning,  however,  and 
their  Spanish-American  rivals  in  accomplishment 
and  numbers  in  attendance  is  still  more  striking 
than  the  mere  dates  of  foundation. 

Of  course  there  were  chairs  of  manj^  sciences, 
strange  as  that  may  seem  to  us  with  our  ridiculous 
traditions  with  regard  to  the  history  of  educa- 
tion.    These  Spanish- American  universities  were 


144     MEDI/EVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES 

the  direct  descendants  of  the  old  medieeval  uni- 
versities. They  were  in  close  relationship  with 
Salamanca,  Valladolid  and  Alcala.  They  were 
the  progeny  of  scientific  universities  and  they 
were,  of  course,  occupied  mainly  with  science.  In 
spite  of  the  fact  that  already  the  influence  of 
the  Renaissance,  with  its  classical  studies  as  the 
basis  of  education,  had  begun  to  make  itself  felt, 
these  Spanish- American  universities  retained,  to  a 
great  extent,  the  scientific  curriculum.  Nor  must 
it  be  thought  that  they  were  shilly-shally  insti- 
tutions of  learning,  doing  nothing  in  reality,  but 
making  a  great  pretence  of  studying  many  things. 
To  know  the  very  opposite  we  turn  to  Bourne, 
himself  at  the  time  a  professor  at  Yale,  and  writ- 
ing one  of  the  volumes  of  a  series  edited  by  Pro- 
fessor Albert  Bushnell  Hart,  who  holds  the  chair 
of  history  at  Harvard,  to  be  told  in  very  definite 
emphatic  terms  how  successfully  investigations  in 
science  and  scientific  education  were  carried  on  in 
Mexico.     Professor  Bourne  says: 

"  Not  all  the  institutions  of  learning  founded 
in  Mexico  in  the  sixteenth  century  can  be  enumer- 
ated here,  but  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  in 
number,  range  of  studies  and  standard  of  attain- 
ments by  the  officers  they  surpassed  anything  ex- 
isting in  English  America  until  the  nineteenth 
century.  Mexican  scholars  made  distinguished 
achievements  in  some  branches  of  science,  'par- 
ticularly medicine  and  surgery,  hut  pre-eminently 
linguistics,   history    and   anthropology.      Diction- 


MEDI.^VAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES     145 

aries  and  grammars  of  the  native  languages  and 
histories  of  the  jNIexican  institutions  are  an  im- 
posing proof  of  their  scholarly  devotion  and  in- 
tellectual activit}\  Conspicuous  are  Toribio  de 
Motolinia's  '  Historia  de  las  Indias  de  Nueva 
EiSj)ana,'  Duran's  '  Historia  de  las  Indias  de 
Nueva  Espana,'  but  most  important  of  all  Saha- 
gun's  great  work  on  Mexican  life  and  religion." 
The  scientific  products  of  these  universities  in 
America  are  interesting  because  almost  as  a  rule 
we  know  absolutely  nothing  about  them  in  Eng- 
lish America,  and,  therefore,  conclude  there  must 
have  been  none.  The  first  book  written  on  a 
medical  topic  in  America  was  the  "  Secretos  de 
Chirurgia,"  written  by  Dr.  Pedrarias  de  Bena- 
vides,  which  was  published  at  Valladolid  in  Spain 
in  1567.  The  first  book  on  medicine  actually  pub- 
lished in  this  country  was  "  Opera  Medicinalia," 
by  Francisco  Bravo.*  On  Columbus'  second  ex- 
pedition, however,  a  Dr.  Chan^a  who  had  been 
physician-in-ordinary  to  the  King  and  Queen  of 
Spain,  was  sent  with  the  expedition  as  what  we 
would  now  call  a  scientific  attache.  On  his  return 
he  wrote  a  volume  of  scientific  observations  that 
he  had  made  in  America.  Some  of  these  were 
doubtless  written  while  he  was  over  here,  though 
the  book  was  published  in  Spain.  Dr.  Ybarra  of 
New  York  recently  published  a  resume  of  this  in 
the  Smithsonian  Publications  and  an  article  on 
it  in  the  Journal  of  the  American  Medical  Asso- 

*  Published  in  Mexico,  1570. 


146     MEDIiEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES 

ciation.  It  shows  very  well  how  wide  were  the 
scientific  interests  of  the  physicians  of  the  time 
and  how  ardent  their  investigation  of  science,  for 
there  is  scarcely  a  phase  of  modern  science  that 
would  be  touched  on  by  the  corps  of  scientists 
now  attached  to  such  an  expedition  which  does  not 
receive  some  serious  treatment  in  Dr.  Chan^a's 
book.  Thus  early  did  the  Spanish-Americans 
take  up  scientific  investigation  seriously. 

Professor  Bourne  of  Yale,  in  his  chapter  on 
the  "  Transmission  of  the  European  Culture," 
in  the  third  volume  of  the  American  Nation 
Series,*  says  (p.  17)  :  "  Early  in  the  eighteenth 
century  the  Lima  University  [Lima,  Peru] 
counted  nearly  2,000  students  and  numbered  about 
one  hundred  and  eighty  doctors  [in  its  faculty]  in 
theology,  civil  and  canon  law,  medicine  and  the 
arts.  Ulloa  reports  that  '  the  university  makes  a 
stately  appearance  from  without,  and  its  inside 
is  decorated  with  suitable  ornaments.'  There  were 
chairs  of  all  the  sciences,  and  '  some  of  the  pro- 
fessors have,  notwithstanding  the  vast  distance, 
gained  the  applause  of  the  literati  of  Europe.' 
The  coming  of  the  Jesuits  contributed  much  to 
the  real  educational  work  in  America.  They  es- 
tablished colleges,  one  of  which,  the  little  Jesuit 
College  at  Juli,  on  Lake  Titicaca,  became  a  seat 
of  genuine  learning." 

A  distinguished  professor  of  medicine  in  this 
countrj^  to  whose  attention  this  state  of  medical 

*  Harpers,  New  York,  1908. 


MEDIEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES     147 

education  in  the  Spanish-American  countries,  so 
different  from  what  is  thought,  was  called,  said: 
"  What  a  surprise  it  is  to  find  that  while  we  have 
been  accustomed  to  think  that  the  primum  mobile 
[the  active  initiative]  in  education  in  this  country 
came  from  the  Anglo-Saxons,  we  now  find  that 
they  were  long  anticipated  in  every  department 
of  education  by  the  Spaniards,  though  we  have 
been  rather  accustomed  to  despise  them  for  their 
backwardness."  With  regard  to  the  establishment 
of  the  first  American  medical  school,  it  is  no 
longer  a  surprise  to  find  that  it  was  established 
in  Mexico,  just  as  soon  as  we  realize  that  the 
Mexican  University  was  closely  in  touch  with  the 
traditions  of  the  mediaeval  universities  generally 
and  these  all  established  medical  schools  as  uni- 
versity departments.  The  standards  of  these 
mediaeval  medical  schools  were  transported  to 
America  and  maintained.  Our  medical  schools  in 
the  United  States  got  away  from  the  universities, 
became  mere  preparatory  institutions,  granted  de- 
grees for  just  as  little  study  as  possible,  two 
terms  of  four  months  each  in  most  cases,  some- 
times given  in  the  same  calendar  year  and  re- 
quiring no  preliminary  training.  We  are  reform- 
ing this  now  for  a  generation,  but  just  inasmuch 
as  we  are,  far  from  advancing,  we  are  going 
straight  back  to  the  mediaeval  universities  and 
their  standards  and  methods. 

With  all  this  evidence  before  us  it  seems  per- 
fectly clear  that  these  old  mediaeval  universities 


148      MEDIEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES 

must  be  considered  to  have  been  scientific  univer- 
sities in  our  fullest  modern  sense  of  the  term. 
They  devoted  all  their  time  to  the  study  of 
phenomena  around  them  and  the  attempt  to  find 
the  principles  underlying  them.  They  went  at  it 
somewhat  differently  in  many  departments  of 
science  than  those  which  are  now  employed,  but  in 
all  their  practical  work  at  least,  they  anticipated 
our  methods  as  well  as  many  of  our  results.  The 
great  professors  wrote  text-books  and  students 
who  were  ardent  in  the  pursuit  of  knowledge 
copied  out  those  text-books  by  hand.  They  had 
no  way  of  easily  multiplying  them  almost  in- 
definitety,  as  we  have  at  the  present  time.  Prob- , 
ably  nothing  shows  so  well  the  enthusiastic  zeal 
of  these  times  in  the  pursuit  of  scientific  knowl- 
edge as  the  fact  that  so  many  copies  of  these  text- 
books still  remain  for  us.  Much  has  been  lost  by 
war  and  fire,  and  still  more  by  wanton  destruc- 
tion by  people  who  could  not  understand,  for  there 
were  many  intei'vening  generations  that  sold  these 
old  manuscripts  by  the  ton  for  the  use  of  grocers 
to  wrap  up  butter  and  an}^  other  commodity.  If 
we  only  had  the  wealth  of  manuscript  that  was 
originally  created  it  would  be  easy  to  fill  in  the 
gaps  in  our  knowledge,  and  show  the  wonderful 
scientific  scholarship  of  these  medieval  univer- 
sities. 

As  it  is,  there  cannot  be  the  slightest  doubt 
that  these  were  great  scientific  universities.  How, 
then,  has  the  opposite  tradition  of  science  only 


MEDIEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES      149 

coming  to  cultivation  in  our  time  obtained  a  foot- 
hold ;  above  all,  how  has  it  happened  that  men  have 
insisted  that  there  was  no  science  in  these  old 
days  because  the  Church  was  opposed  to  science 
and  would  not  permit  its  study  or  allow  of  scien- 
tific investigation?  If  we  were  to  believe  many 
writers  who  have  been  taken  very  seriously, 
anatomy  was  conducted  only  under  the  pain  of 
death,  chemistry  made  one  liable  to  all  sorts  of 
penalties  and  other  forms  of  science  were  abso- 
lutely banned.  There  is  no  reason  at  all  for  any 
such  declarations  from  what  we  know  of  the  his- 
tory of  science.  The  place  where  such  groundless 
assertions  are  found  is  in  the  so-called  history  of 
religion.  The  odium  tJieologicum  was  very  bitter, 
and  ignorant  men  said  things  without  knowing, 
and  then  their  statements  were  copied  by  others 
who  knew  even  less. 

Probably  there  is  no  more  serious  blot  on  the 
history  of  education  and,  above  all,  the  history  of 
science,  than  the  fact  that  men  supposed  to  be 
scholarly  have  been  so  ready  to  accept  absolutely 
ignorant  statements  with  regard  to  the  state  of 
science  during  the  Middle  Ages.  It  would  be 
amusing,  if  it  were  not  so  amazing,  to  recall  the 
utter  lack  of  scholarship  that  characterized  the 
men  who  wrote  such  things,  but  above  all  the 
generations  that  accepted  such  history  as  solemn 
truth  and  even  conferred  academic  dignities  and 
degrees  on  such  men.  Take  a  book  like  Dr. 
Draper's  "Conflict  of  Science  and  Religion."     It 


150     MEDIEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES 

is  founded  on  the  uttermost  lack  of  knowledge  of 
the  subjects  of  which  he  speaks.  It  is  true  that 
he  has  consulted  historical  writers.  They  were  all 
secondary  authorities.  He  had  never  gone  back 
to  look  up  a  single  original  document  of  any  kind. 
He  was  a  physician;  supposedly  at  least,  then, 
he  should  know  the  history  of  medicine.  He 
knows  nothing  at  all  about  the  great  medical 
schools  of  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries; 
of  the  great  period  of  surgery  that  occurred  at 
this  time  he  has  no  inkling.  Had  he  cared  really 
to  know  anything  about  the  period  he  could  have 
seen  some  of  the  text-books  written  by  these  men. 
Instead  we  have  an  exhibition,  in  his  book,  of  the 
most  consummate  assumption  of  knowledge  asso- 
ciated with  sublime  ignorance  and  bitter  con- 
demnation for  old  institutions,  educational  and 
ecclesiastical,  in  matters  of  which  he  knows  noth- 
ing, though  if  he  did  know,  his  opinion  would 
surely  be  just  the  opposite  to  that  he  has  ex- 
pressed. 

To  a  great  degree  this  is  true  of  President 
White's  "  A  History  of  the  Warfare  of  Science 
with  Theology."  Secondary  authorities  con- 
stantly figure  in  it,  and  they  are  quoted  from, 
as  a  rule,  with  the  definite  idea  of  proving  a  par- 
ticular thesis — that  theology  is  opposed  to  science. 
Of  course  it  is  very  different  to  that  of  Draper, 
there  is  much  more  of  true  scholarship  in  it,  but 
it  is  sad  to  think  that  the  prestige  of  a  president 
of  a  great  university  who  had  been  a  professor  of 


MEDIAEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES      151 

history  should  have  been  lent  to  statements  so 
egregiously  misleading  as  those  which  are  con- 
stantly to  be  found  in  his  work.  Even  sadder  it  is 
to  think  that  this  has  been  accepted  by  many 
people  as  a  scholarly  work  and  as  representing  the 
last  word  on  the  subject. 

The  "  Cambridge  Modern  History  "  ip  its  pref- 
ace said,  that  history  has  been  a  long  conspiracy 
against  the  truth  and  that  we  must  now  go  back 
once  more  to  the  original  documents.  "  It  has 
become  impossible,"  the  editors  declare,  "  for  the 
historical  writers  of  the  present  age  to  trust  with- 
out reserve  even  to  the  most  respected  secondary 
authorities.  The  honest  student  continually  finds 
himself  deserted,  retarded,  misled,  by  the  classics 
of  historical  literature,  and  has  to  hew  his  own 
way  through  multitudinous  transactions,  periodi- 
cals and  official  publications  in  order  to  reach  the 
truth."  In  no  department  of  history  is  this 
expression  more  true  than  in  that  of  education, 
and  especially  of  science  and  the  relation  of  edu- 
cational institutions  to  scientific  development.  No 
man  should  now  dare  venture  to  say  anything 
about  the  state  of  science  at  any  time  in  the 
world's  history  who  has  not  seen  some  of  the  books 
written  at  that  time.  Above  all,  no  one  should 
venture  to  make  little  of  the  past  on  the  strength 
of  what  religiously  prejudiced  writers  have  said 
about  it. 

This  story  of  the  mediaeval  universities  is  most 
illuminating   from   that   standpoint.      They   were 


152     MEDIyEVAL  SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES 

scientific  universities  closely  resembling  our  own. 
It  has  become  the  custom  to  talk  of  them  as  if 
they  were  institutions  of  learning  that  accom- 
plished nothing,  and  wasted  their  time  over  trifles. 
We  often  hear  of  how  much  time  was  wasted  in 
dialectics  in  the  Middle-Age  universities,  but 
surely  it  was  not  more  than  is  wasted  over  tech- 
nics in  our  modern  university.  Hundreds  of 
books  were  written  about  the  quips  and  quiddities 
of  logic,  but  thousands  of  volumes  are  full  of 
technics  and  most  of  our  scientific  journals  are 
crowded  with  it.  Let  us,  then,  if  for  no  other 
reason  than  our  fraternity  with  them,  begin  to 
do  justice  to  these  old  universities.  Their  scholars- 
were  ardent  and  zealous,  their  professors  were 
enthusiastic  and  laborious.  The  tomes  they  issued 
were  larger  and  their  writings  more  voluminous 
than  those  of  our  own  professors.  They  are  hard 
reading,  but  no  one  must  dare  to  criticise  them 
unless  he  has  read  them,  and,  above  all,  no  one 
must  make  little  of  them  without  knowing  some- 
thing about  them  at  first  hand.  This  is  scholar- 
ship; the  secondary  information  that  has  been 
popular  is  sciolism.  Let  us  get  back  to  scholar- 
ship.   That  is  what  we  need  just  now  in  America. 


IDEAL  POPULAR  EDUCATION 


"  According  to  my  view  he  who  would  be  good  at  any- 
thing must  practise  that  thing  from  his  youth  upwards, 
both  in  sport  and  earnest,  in  the  particular  way  which 
the  work  requires :  for  example,  he  who  is  to  be  a  good 
builder,  should  play  at  building  children's  houses;  and 
he  who  is  to  be  a  good  husbandman  at  tilling  the  ground ; 
those  who  have  the  care  of  their  education  should  provide 
them  when  young  with  mimic  tools.  And  they  should 
learn  beforehand  the  knowledge  which  they  will  after- 
wards require  for  their  art.  For  example,  the  future  car- 
penter should  learn  to  measure  or  apply  the  line  in  play; 
and  the  future  warrior  should  learn  riding  or  some  other 
exercise  for  amusement,  and  the  teacher  should  endeavor  to 
direct  the  children's  inclinations  and  pleasures  by  the  help 
of  amusements  to  their  final  aim  in  life.  The  sum  of  edu- 
cation is  right  training  in  the  nursery.  The  soul  of  the 
child  in  his  play  should  be  trained  to  that  sort  of  excel- 
lence in  which,  when  he  grows  up  to  manhood,  he  will 
have  to  be  perfected.  Do  you  agree  with  me  thus 
far.?  "—Plato,  Laws  (Jowett),  Vol.  IV,  p.  173.  Scrib- 
ner,  1902. 

"  There  will  be  gymnasia  and  schools  in  the  midst  of 
the  city,  and  outside  the  city  circuses  (playgrounds)  and 
open  spaces  for  riding  places  and  archery.  In  all  of  these 
there  should  be  instructors  of  the  young." — Plato,  Laws 
(Jowett),  Vol.  IV,  p.  82.     Scribner,  1902. 


IDEAL  POPULAR  EDUCATION  * 

We  have  come  to  realize  in  recent  years  that  in 
many  ways  our  education  of  the  masses  is  a 
failure.  Teaching  people  to  read  and  write  and 
occupying  them  with  books  till  they  are  fifteen 
years  of  age,  when  all  that  they  will  use  their 
power  to  read  for  is  to  devote  themselves  to  three 
or  four  editions  of  the  daily  paper  and  the  huge, 
overgrown  Sunday  papers  on  their  only  day  of 
leisure,  with  perhaps  occasional  recourse  to  a 
cheap  magazine  or  a  cheaper  novel,  in  order  to 
kill  time,  as  they  frankly  declare,  is  scarcely  worth 
while.  Indeed  we  have  even  come  to  realize  that 
such  education  gives  opportunity  rather  for  the 
development  of  discontent  than  of  happiness. 
The  learning  to  write  which  enables  a  man  to  be 
a  clerk,  or  a  bookkeeper,  the  occupations  that  are, 
as  a  rule,  the  least  lucrative,  that  are  so  full  that 
there  is  no  question  of  organizing  them,  that  con- 
fine men  for  long  hours  in  dark  rooms  very  often 
and  furnish  the  least  possible  opportunity  to  rise, 
is  of  itself  not  ideal.     With  some  rather  discon- 

*  The  material  for  this  lecture  was  collected  for  a  course  on  the 
History  of  Education  delivered  to  the  Sisters  of  Charity  of  Mount  St. 
Vincent's,  at  St.  Stephen's  Hall,  New  York  City,  in  January  and 
Februarjs  1909.  The  material  was  subsequently  developed  for  a 
similar  set  of  lectures  for  the  religious  teachers  in  the  parochial 
schools  of  Philadelphia  in  the  spring  of  1910. 

155 


156  IDEAL  POPULAR  EDUCATION 

nected  information  this  is  practically  all  that  our 
ordinary  education  teaches  people,  and  yet  we 
spend  eight  years  and  large  sums  of  money  on  it. 
We  are  just  beginning  to  realize  that  other 
forms  of  education  and  not  these  superficial  in- 
troductions to  supposed  scholarship,  which  can 
mean  so  little,  constitute  realities  in  education. 

We  have  come  to  realize  that  Germany,  where 
it  is  said  that  more  than  sixty  per  cent,  of  the 
population  has  its  opportunity  for  some  technical 
training,  so  that  men  are  taught  the  rudiments  of 
a  trade  or  a  handicraft  or  some  occupation  other 
than  that  which  shall  make  them  mere  routine 
servants  of  some  one  else,  does  far  better  than  this. 
By  contrast  it  is  remarked  that  less  than  one  per 
cent,  of  our  children  have  the  opportunity  for 
such  training.  We  are  very  prone  to  think,  how- 
ever, that  the  technical  school  is  a  modern  idea. 
We  assume  that  it  owes  its  origin  to  the  develop- 
ment of  mankind  in  the  process  of  evolution  to 
a  point  where  the  recognition  of  the  value  of 
handiwork  and  craftsmanship  has  at  length  arisen. 
Nothing  could  well  be  less  true  than  this.  It 
is  true  that  the  eighteenth  century  saw  practically 
no  education  of  this  kind  and  it  was  only  at  the 
end  of  the  nineteenth  century  that  any  modern 
nation  even  began  to  wake  up  to  the  necessity 
for  it.  In  the  older  times,  however,  and,  above 
all,  in  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries, 
there  was  a  magnificent  training  afforded  the 
masses   of  the   people   in   all   sorts   of   arts   and 


IDEAL  POPULAR  EDUCATION  157 

crafts  and  trades  and  occupations,  such  as  can 
now  be  obtained  only  in  technical  schools.  They 
did  not  call  tiiese  teaching  institutions  technical 
schools,  but  they  had  all  the  benefits  that  we 
would  now  derive  from  such  schools. 

This  training  the  people  of  these  times  owed  to 
the  gilds.  These  were,  of  course,  of  many  forms, 
the  Arts  Gilds,  the  Crafts  Gilds,  the  Merchants 
Gilds,  and  then  the  various  Trades  Gilds.  Boys 
were  apprenticed  to  men  following  such  an  occu- 
pation as  the  3'outh  had  expressed  a  liking  for, 
or  that  he  seemed  to  be  adapted  to,  or  that  his 
parents  chose  for  him,  and  then  began  his  train- 
ing. It  was  conducted  for  five  or  six  years  usu- 
ally in  the  house  of  the  master  or  tradesman  to 
whom  he  was  apprenticed.  The  master  provided 
him  with  board  and  clothes,  at  least,  after  the 
first  j^ear,  and  he  graduall}^  trained  him  in  the 
trade  or  craft  or  industrj^  whatever  it  might  be. 
After  his  apprenticeship  was  over  the  young  man 
of  eighteen  or  so  became  a  journeyman  work- 
man and  usually  wandered  from  his  native  town 
to  other  places,  sometimes  going  even  over  seas 
in  order  to  learn  the  foreign  secrets  of  his  craft 
or  art  or  trade,  and  after  three  years  of  this,  when 
ready  to  settle  down,  presented  evidence  as  to 
his  accomplishments,  and  if  this  was  accepted 
he  became  a  master  in  his  gild.  If  he  were  a 
craftsman  or  an  artisan  he  made  a  lock  or  a  bolt 
or  some  more  artistic  piece  of  work  in  the  metals 
base   or   precious,   and   if  this   sample   was   con- 


158  IDEAL  POPULAR  EDUCATION 

sidered  worthy  of  them  by  his  fellow-gildsmen 
he  was  admitted  as  a  master  in  the  gild.  This 
was  the  highest  rank  of  workman,  and  the  men 
who  held  it  were  supposed  to  be  able  to  do  any- 
thing that  had  been  done  by  fellow-workmen  up 
to  that  time.  The  piece  that  he  presented  was 
then  called  a  masterpiece,  and  it  is  from  this 
that  our  good  old  English  word  masterpiece  was 
derived. 

This  might  seem  a  veiy  inadequate  training, 
and  perhaps  appeal  to  many  as  not  deserving  of 
the  name  of  technical  training  or  schooling.  The 
only  way  to  decide  as  to  that,  however,  is  to 
appreciate  the  products  turned  out  by  these 
workmen.  It  was  these  graduates  of  the  ap- 
prentice-journeyman system  of  technical  training 
who  produced  the  great  series  of  marvellous  art 
objects  which  adorn  the  English  cathedrals,  the 
English  municipal  buildings,  the  castles  and  the 
palaces  and  the  monasteries  of  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury. It  was  the  graduates  of  these  schools,  or  at 
least  of  this  method  of  schooling,  who  produced 
the  wonderful  stained  glass,  the  beautiful  bells, 
the  finished  ironwork,  the  surpassing  woodwork, 
the  sculpture,  the  decoration, — in  a  word,  all  the 
artistic  details  of  the  architecture  of  the  wonder- 
ful Gothic  periods  of  the  thirteenth  and  four- 
teenth centuries, — which  we  have  learned  to  value 
so  highly  in  recent  years.  If  we  wanted  to  pro- 
duce such  work  in  our  large  cities  now,  we  would 
have  to  import  the  workmen.     These  wonderful 


IDEAL  POPULAR  EDUCATION  159 

products  were  made  in  cities  so  small  that  we 
would  be  apt  to  think  them  scarcely  more  than 
insignificant  towns  in  our  time.  No  town  in 
England  during  the  thirteenth  century,  with  the 
possible  exception  of  London,  had  more  than 
25,000,  and  most  of  the  cathedral  towns  were 
under  15,000  in  population  and  many  of  them  had 
less  than  10,000. 

The  extent  to  which  this  teaching  went  and  how 
much  it  partook  of  the  nature  of  real  technical 
training  can  be  very  well  appreciated  from  recent 
studies  of  these  early  times.  There  has  prob- 
ably never  been  more  beautiful  handicraftsman- 
ship  nor  better  products  of  what  we  now  call  the 
arts  and  crafts  than  during  the  thirteenth  and 
fourteenth  centuries,  when  this  system  of  educat- 
ing the  masses  became  thoroughly  organized. 
Any  one  who  knows  the  details  of  the  decora- 
tion of  the  great  Gothic  cathedrals  or  of  the 
monasteries  and  castles  and  municipal  buildings 
of  these  centuries  will  be  well  acquainted  with 
these  marvels  of  accomplishment,  scattered  every- 
where throughout  England,  France,  Germany, 
Italy  and  Spain  in  this  .period.  Something  of 
the  story  of  it  all  I  tried  to  tell,  as  far  as  the 
cathedrals  are  concerned,  in  my  book,  "  The  Thir- 
teenth the  Greatest  of  Centuries."  Those  who 
care  to  see  another  side  of  it  will  find  it  in 
Mr.  A.  Ralph  Adams  Cram's  "  The  Ruined 
Abbeys  of  Great  Britain."*    Mr.  Cram,  himself  a 

*  New  York,  The  Churchman  Company,  1905. 


160  IDEAL  POPULAR  EDUCATION 

successful  modern  architect,  does  not  hesitate  to 
declare  some  of  this  work  as  among  the  most 
beautiful  that  ever  was  made,  even  including  the 
ancient  Greek  and  Roman  productions.  In  his 
searches  into  the  ruins  of  these  old  abbeys  he  has 
found  mutilated  fragments  so  consummate  in  their 
faultless  art  that  they  deserve  a  place  with  the 
masterpieces  of  sculpture  of  every  age. 

It  was  not  alone,  however,  in  the  arts  of  sculp- 
ture and  decoration,  that  is  in  those  finer  accom- 
plishments that  would  occupy  only  a  few  of  the 
workmen,  but  in  every  detail  of  adornment  that 
these  artistic  craftsmen  excelled.  The  locks  and 
bolts,  the  latches  and  hinges,  the  grilles,  even  the 
very  fences  and  gates  made  in  wrought  iron,  are 
beautiful  in  every  line  and  in  the  artistic  efficiency 
of  their  designs.  The  carved  woodwork  is  in 
many  places  a  marvel.  When  a  gate  has  to  be 
moved,  or  a  hinge  is  no  longer  used,  or  a  lock  or 
even  a  key  from  these  early  times  goes  out  of 
commission,  we  would  consider  it  almost  a  sac- 
rilege to  throw  it  away;  it  is  transported  to  the 
museum — not  alone  because  of  its  value  as  an 
antique  but,  as  a  rule,  also  because  of  its  charm 
as  a  work  of  art.  When  a  bench-end  is  no  longer 
needed  it,  too,  finds  its  way  into  the  museum. 
As  Rev.  Augustus  Jessopp  has  shown  very  clearly 
in  his.  studies  of  the  old  English  parishes,  these 
marvels  of  iron  and  woodwork  were  made,  in 
most  cases,  respectively  by  the  village  blacksmith 
and  the   village   carpenter.      In   the   archives   of 


IDEAL  POPULAR  EDUCATION  161 

some  of  the  parishes  of  the  JNIiddle  Ages  the  ac- 
counts are  found  showing  that  these  men  were 
paid  for  them.  When  the  village  blacksmith  and 
the  village  carpenter  becomes  the  artist  artisan 
capable  of*  producing  such  good  work,  then  in- 
deed is  there  an  ideal  education  at  work  and  a 
technical  training  that  may  be  boasted  of. 

The  most  important  feature  of  this  education 
remains  to  be  spoken  of,  however.  It  consisted 
of  the  fine  development  and  occupation  of  the 
mind  that  came  from  this  system.  Men  found 
happiness  in  their  work.  In  a  population  of  less 
than  3,000,000  of  people  many  thousands  of 
workmen,  engaged  in  building  these  magnificent 
monuments  of  that  old  time,  reaped  a  blessed 
pleasure  in  the  doing  of  beautiful  things.  They, 
too,  had  a  share  in  the  great  monument  of  which 
their  town  was  worthily  proud  and  the  opportu- 
nity to  make  something  worth  while  for  it.  In- 
stead of  idly  envying  others  they  devoted  them- 
selves to  making  whatever  their  contribution 
might  be  as  beautiful  as  possible.  It  might  be 
only  the  hinges  for  the  doors  or  the  latch  for  the 
gates,  it  might  be  only  the  stonework  for  the 
bases  of  pillars,  though  it  might  be  the  beautiful 
decoration  of  their  capitals;  but  everything  was 
being  done  beautifully  and  an  artist  hand  was 
required  everywhere.  ]Men  must  have  tried  over 
and  over  again  to  make  such  fine  things.  They 
were  not  done  at  haphazard  nor  at  one  trial. 
There  must  have  been  many  a  spoiled  piece  re- 


162  IDEAL  POPULAR  EDUCATION 

jected,  not  so  much  by  the  foreman  as  by  the 
critical,  educated  taste  of  the  workmen  themselves 
who  were  able  to  make  such  beautiful  things. 
JNIen  who  could  make  such  artistic  products  must 
have  labored  much  and  begun  over  and  over 
again.  This  must  have  made  the  finest  occupa- 
tion of  mind  that  a  great  mass  of  people  has  ever 
had  in  all  the  world's  history. 

American  millionaires  model  the  gates  of  their 
parks  and  the  grille  doors  of  their  palaces  under 
the  wise  direction  of  modern  architects  who  fortu- 
nately know  enough  to  follow  the  designs  created 
by  these  village  workmen  of  the  olden  time. 
Modern  palatial  residences  are  glad  to  have  sam- 
ples of  the  wood-carving  of  the  thirteenth  and 
fourteenth  centuries  as  models  for  their  decora- 
tion, and  as  attractive  pieces  around  which  pres- 
ent-day work  may  be  done.  We  have  to  import  our 
workmen,  even  our  large  cities  cannot  supply  all 
that  we  want  of  them,  and  yet  little  towns  of  a  few 
thousand  inhabitants  had  them  in  sufficient  abun- 
dance in  the  olden  time  to  enable  them  to  make 
every  portion  of  their  gi-eat  monumental  buildings, 
cathedrals,  abbeys,  universities,  castles  and  town 
halls  beautiful  in  every  way.  This  represents 
the  triumph  of  a  technical  training  afforded  by 
the  gilds  of  workmen  of  the  olden  time.  We  have 
to  insist  on  this  because  our  present  generation 
has  been  so  sure  that  ours  was  the  first  genera- 
tion that  gave  any  serious  attention  to  the  educa- 
tion of  the  masses,  that  it  is  important  to  show  by 


IDEAL  POPULAR  EDUCATION  165 

contrast  how  much  of  a  mistake  we  have  made  and 
how  well  an  older  generation  accomplished  its 
purpose. 

The  chapter  of  the  "  Lost  Arts  "  might  well  be 
told  with  regard  to  this  old  time.  They  had 
secrets  in  glass-making  which  were  the  tradition 
of  the  teaching  of  particular  gilds  that  we  have 
been  unable  to  find  again  in  the  modern  time. 
There  is  a  jewel-like  lustre  to  their  colors  that  is 
sometimes  simply  marvellous  in  its  depth  and 
purity.  At  Lincoln  the  contrast  between  old 
and  new  glass  can  be  seen  very  well.  The  old 
windows  of  the  thirteenth  century  time  were 
stoned  out  by  the  Parliamentarians  when  they 
captured  the  town,  because  forsooth  they  could 
have  no  such  idolatry  as  that  in  their  presence. 
The  old  sexton,  who  as  man  and  boy  for  over  sixty 
years  had  hved  his  life  under  the  beautiful  tints 
of  the  old  glass,  now  saw  it  scattered  upon  the 
floor  in  fragments.  He  could  not  part  with  it 
thus  and  so  he  gathered  it  up  into  bags,  broken 
to  pieces  though  it  was,  and  hid  it  away  in  the 
crypt.  In  the  nineteenth  century  when  they  were 
restoring  the  cathedral  they  found  these  frag- 
ments of  the  old  windows.  They  pieced  them 
together  and  they  proved  to  be  so  beautiful  that, 
though  they  could  not  fit  them  as  they  were  in 
the  olden  time,  at  least  they  succeeded  in  making 
a  beautiful  patchwork  of  colored  glass. 

Over  on  the  other  side  of  Lincoln  Cathedral 
they  then  placed  some  new  windows  of  the  mod- 


164.  IDEAL  POPULAR  EDUCATION 

ern  time.  These  were  made  in  France,  I  believe. 
They  were  made  about  the  middle  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  when  stained-glass  making  was  al- 
most at  its  ^lowest  ebb.  They  were  considered  to 
be  very  beautiful,  however,  and  something  like 
£20,000  sterling  was  paid  for  them.  The  con- 
trast between  the  two  sets  of  windows  is  very 
striking.  The  old  windows  are  so  beautiful,  the 
new  ones  are  so  commonplace.  The  visitor,  even 
though  he  knows  nothing  about  art,  notices  the 
contrast  and,  if  he  has  an  eye  for  color,  views  with 
something  of  a  shock  this  attempt  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  to  do  something  that  had  been  so 
well  done  by  the  gild-trained  workmen  of  the 
technical  schools  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Though 
they  are  represented  here  only  by  patched  frag- 
ments of  their  work  he  can  scarcely  repress  a 
smile  at  the  effect  of  their  work  in  cheapening 
the  modern.  Everywhere  it  is  the  same  way. 
Mr.  F.  Rolfe,  writing  from  Venice,  where  he  has 
been  studying  thirteenth-century  glass,  and  talk- 
ing of  its  wonderful  beauty  as  compared  to  any- 
thing modern,  says:  "  There  are  also  fragments 
of  two  windows,  pieced  together  and  the  missing 
parts  filled  in  with  the  best  which  modern  Murano 
can  do.  These  show  the  celebrated  Beroviero 
Ruby  Glass  (secret  lost)  of  marvellous  depth  and 
brilliancy  in  comparison  with  which  the  modern 
work  is  merely  watery.  (The  ancient  is  just  like 
a  decanter  of  port  wine.)" 

This  is  the  story,   no  matter  where  one  goes, 


IDEAL  POPULAR  EDUCATION  165 

throughout  Europe.  At  York  they  would  not 
surrender  the  town  to  the  Parliamentary  army 
until  a  guarantee  had  been  given  them  that  their 
cathedral  would  not  be  devastated  as  had  been  the 
case  elsewhere.  Besides  General  Ireton  was  a 
friend  of  the  Yorkists  and  he  was  ready  to  agree 
to  the  stipulation.  The  agreement  was  not  fully 
carried  out,  fanatic  soldiers  could  not  be  entirely 
restrained,  but  some  of  the  old  glass  remains. 
There  is  probably  nothing  more  beautiful  in  all 
the  realm  of  artistic  glass-making  than  the  fa- 
mous Five  Sisters  window  at  York.  In  France 
the  Revolution  repeated  what  the  Puritans  ac- 
complished of  ruin  in  England.  Notre  Dame  has 
no  trace  of  its  old  glass.  In  some  of  the  cathe- 
drals, however,  there  has  fortunately  been  pre- 
served for  us  enough  of  it  to  know  how  wonder- 
fully the  makers  of  it  must  have  been  trained, 
and  to  let  us  realize  how  much  of  experiment,  of 
investigation,  of  study  that  we  would  now  call 
applied  chemistry  must  have  gone  to  the  making 
of  this  wonderful  old  glass.  These  technical 
schools  were  not  merely  passing  on  arts  and  crafts 
traditions,  but  each  generation  was  adding  to  the 
secrets  of  the  gilds  by  original  research  of  its 
own.  We  are  prone  to  think  that  such  work  of 
original  investigation  was  reserved  for  our  time, 
but  that  is  only  because  of  the  foolish  self-com- 
placency which  blinds  us  to  what  other  genera- 
tions did.  » 

The  stained  glass  of  the  cathedrals  of  Bourges 


166  IDEAL  POPULAR  EDUCATION 

and  of  Chartres  shows  the  marvellous  success  of 
these  old  workers  in  glass  and  their  power  to  make 
enduring  products.  It  is  a  mystery  to  see  how 
their  blues  have  lasted  while  the  sun  has  shone 
through  them  all  these  years  and  caused  no  de- 
terioration or  only  such  as  softens  and  adds  to 
beauty  but  not  really  causes  to  fade.  Blue  had 
to  be  used  in  great  profusion  on  the  windows  be- 
cause the  symbolism  of  color  was  well  determined 
and  blue  stood  for  the  virtue  of  purity  and  was 
the  Blessed  Virgin's  color.  It  had  to  come  in, 
therefore,  on  nearly  all  occasions.  Usually  by 
irradiation  blue  causes  surrounding  colors  to  lose 
something  of  their  tint,  and  by  contrast  often 
spoils  what  would  ordinarily  be  expected  to  prove 
beautiful  color  effects.  These  old  workmen  had 
found  the  secret  of  using  it  in  such  a  way  as  not 
thus  to  spoil  surrounding  colors,  not  to  permit 
it  to  be  too  assertive,  yet  we  have  wonderful  en- 
during blues  that  have  come  down  to  us  prac- 
tically unchanged  through  all  these  centuries. 
Where  the  workmen  of  the  old  time  set  them- 
selves producing  pure  color  effects,  their  windows 
look  like  jewels  and  coruscate  in  the  light  of  the 
setting  sun — for  their  most  charming  effects  were 
particularly  obtained  in  the  west  windows — with  a 
glorious  beauty  that  has  appealed  to  every  gen- 
eration  since. 

It  was  not  alone  in  the  building  trades,  how- 
ever, that  these  fine  things  were  accomplished. 
Bookmaking  reached  a  degree  of  perfection  that 


IDEAL  POPULAR  EDUCATION  167 

has  never  been  excelled.  Humphreys,  the  author- 
ity on  illuminated  books,  declares  that  the  manu- 
script volumes  of  the  thirteenth  century,  illumi- 
nated as  they  are  by  the  patient  labor  and  the 
finely  developed  taste  of  this  time,  are  the  most 
beautiful  ever  made.  We  have  one  example  of 
the  thirteenth-century  illuminated  book  in  the 
Lenox  Library  in  Xew  York  for  which,  I  be- 
lieve, the  museum  authorities  were  quite  willing 
to  pay  some  $18,000,  and  it  is  worth  much  more 
than  that  now,  for  it  is  a  wondrously  beautiful 
example  of  the  illuminations  of  the  time.  Like 
the  glassmakers,  these  bookmakers  had  secrets 
that  have  been  lost,  and  that  we  with  all  our 
knowledge  of  science  and  of  art  in  the  modern 
time,  or  at  least  our  fondly  complacent  notion 
of  our  knowledge  of  art  and  science,  are  unable 
to  find  the  formulas  for.  They  used  blues  in 
their  illuminating  work  that  have  never  faded, 
though  blues  are  so  prone  to  fade  on  parchment. 
They  managed  their  blues  in  wonderful  way  and 
they  still  are  as  fresh  and  as  lindisturbing  of  the 
harmony  of  other  colors  as  in  the  long  ago.  They 
could  burnish  gold  and  it  stays  as  bright  as  when 
it  was  first  applied  to  the  leaves,  even  after  seven 
centuries.  We  have  lost  the  art  of  burnishing 
gold  in  such  applied  work  and  ours  becomes  dull 
after  a  time. 

Xor  was  this  teaching  of  technics  confined  only 
to  the  men.  From  this  period  we  have  the  most 
beautiful  needlework  in  the  world.     The  famous 


168  IDEAL  POPULAR  EDUCATION 

Cope  of  Ascoli  has  recently  attracted  wide  atten- 
tion. Mr.  Pierpont  Morgan  purchased  it  and  was 
wiUing  to  pay  $60,000  for  it,  though  the  jewels 
that  had  been  on  it  originally  had  been  removed. 
His  experts  assured  him  that  it  was  the  most 
beautiful  piece  of  needlework  in  the  world.  After- 
wards it  was  found  to  have  been  stolen,  and  so  he 
restored  it  to  the  Italian  Government,  who  did  not 
return  it  to  the  little  convent  of  Ascoli  in  North 
Central  Italy,  from  which  it  had  been  stolen  and 
where  it  was  made  at  the  end  of  the  thirteenth 
century  (1284).  Elsewhere  in  Europe  they  were 
doing  just  as  charming  work  with  the  needle.  In 
fact  England,  not  Italy,  was  the  acknowledged 
home  of  it.  The  English  Cope  of  Cyon  is  an- 
other notable  example  of  needlework  from  this 
time.  Thirteenth-century  work  with  the  needle  is 
famous  in  the  history  of  the  art.  It  was  the 
product  of  just  the  same  forces  that  gave  us  the 
wonderful  stained  glass.  They,  too,  used  colors 
and  applied  great  art  principles  to  this  unpromis- 
ing mode  of  expression  and  accomplished  great 
results.  I  have  had  the  privilege  of  seeing  the 
copy  of  the  Cope  of  Ascoli  that  was  made  while 
in  Mr.  Morgan's  possession,  and,  like  the  stained 
glass  of  York  or  Bourges  or  Chartres,  it  is  one 
of  the  things  not  likely  ever  to  be  forgotten,  so 
beautiful  a  realization  is  it  of  what  is  best  in 
taste  and  art. 

The  supremely  interesting  feature  of  this  popu- 
lar education  was  its  effect  upon  the  lives,  and 


IDEAL  POPULAR  EDUCATION  169 

minds,  and  happiness  of  the  workmen.  Men  got 
up  to  their  work  in  the  morning  not  as  to  a  routine 
occupation  in  which  they  did  the  same  things  over 
and  over  again,  until  they  were  so  tired  that  they 
could  scarcely  do  them  any  more,  and  then  came 
home  to  rest  from  fatigue  in  weariness  of  mind 
and  of  body.  But  they  awoke  from  sound  sleep 
with  the  memory  that  ideas  had  been  coming  to 
them  the  day  before,  and  especially  towards  even- 
ing that,  now  with  fresh  bodies,  they  might  be  able 
to  execute  better,  and  that  it  would  surely  be  a 
pleasure  to  work  out.  They  came  to  their  work 
with  an  artist's  spirit,  hopeful  that  they  would 
be  able  to  express  in  the  material  what  they  saw 
so  clearly  with  their  mind's  eye.  It  was  tiresome 
working  but  the  hours  were  not  long,  and  always 
there  was  the  thought  of  accomplishment  worthy 
of  the  cathedral  or  the  abbey  or  the  town  hall, 
worthy  to  be  placed  beside  the  masterpieces  in 
the  best  sense  of  that  dear  old  word,  that  their 
fellow-workmen  of  the  other  gilds  were  accom- 
plishing around  them.  They  went  to  bed  healthily 
tired  but  not  weary,  sometimes  to  dream  of  their 
work,  not  as  a  nightmare,  but  as  something 
that  represented  possibilities  of  accomplishment. 
When  technical  schools  can  lift  men  up  to  this 
plane  then,  indeed,  there  is  a  chance  for  happiness 
even  for  the  workmen. 

Compare  with  this  for  a  moment  the  lot  of 
the  modern  workman.  He  goes  out  in  the  morn- 
ing to  work  that  seldom  is  interesting,  that  he 


170  IDEAL  POPULAR  EDUCATION 

practically  never  cares  to  do  only  that  he  must  get 
money  enough  to  support  himself  and  his  family, 
and  that  requires  the  frequent  repetition  of  routine 
movements  until  he  is  weary,  body  and  soul. 
He  must  work  or  starve.  He  has  very  little  in- 
terest in  it  as  a  rule,  often  none  at  all,  and  some- 
times he  is  thoroughly  disgusted  with  it.  He  must 
earn  money  enough  to  get  bread  to  live  to-day 
so  that  he  shall  be  able  to  go  and  work  again  to- 
morrow. And  so  the  humdrum  round  from  day 
to  day  with  nothing  to  relieve  the  prospect  until 
the  darkness  comes  when  no  man  can  work.  As 
to  dreams  of  accomplishment  or  pleasure  in  his 
work,  as  the  artist  has,  there  is  practically  none. 
He  needs  must  go  on,  and  that  is  all  about  it.  Is 
it  any  wonder  that  this  breeds  discontent? 

Happy  is  the  man  who  has  found  his  work. 
There  is  only  one  happiness  in  this  little  life  of 
ours  and  that  consists  in  having  work  to  do  that 
one  cares  to  do,  and  the  chance  to  do  it  in  such 
order  and  with  such  rewards  as  make  life  rea- 
sonably pleasant,  satisfying  from  the  material 
side.  There  are  no  pleasures  in  life  equal  to  the 
joy  of  the  worker  in  his  work  when  he  cares  for 
it.  Pleasures  are  at  most  but  passing  incidents. 
The  work  is  what  counts.  These  workmen  of  the 
Middle  Ages  taught  in  the  technical  schools  of 
that  olden  time  had  chances  for  happiness,  chances 
that  were  well  taken,  such  as  perhaps  no  other 
generation  of  workmen  could  have. 

Of  course  it  may  be  said  that,  after  all,  there 


IDEAL  POPULAR  EDUCATION  171 

were  only  opportunities  for  a  few  to  work  at  the 
great  architectural  monuments  of  the  thirteenth 
and  fourteenth  centuries.  In  a  sense  this  is  true, 
but  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  without  modern 
mechanical  means  and  with  the  ^low,  patient  la- 
borious effort  required  to  raise  these  huge  edi- 
fices, much  time  and  many  men  were  required. 
Besides  the  cathedrals  and  the  abbeys  there  were 
many  private  castles  and  town  halls,  and  then  in 
many  places  the  homes  of  the  gilds  themselves, 
some  of  which,  as,  for  instance,  the  famous  hall  of 
the  clothmakers  at  Ypres,  are  among  the  most 
beautiful  monuments  of  the  architecture  of  that 
period.  In  everything,  however,  the  workmen 
had  a  chance  to  do  beautiful  work.  In  the  textile 
industries  this  is  the  time  when  some  of  the  most 
beautiful  cloth  ever  made  was  invented  and 
brought  to  perfection.  Linen  was  woven  with 
wonderful  skill,  satin  was  invented  and  brought 
to  perfection,  silk  brocades  of  marvellous  designs 
of  man)"  kinds  were  made,  threads  of  gold  and 
silver  were  introduced  into  the  textures,  wonder- 
fully fine  effects  were  studied  out  and  applied  in 
the  industries,  and  just  as  in  the  decorative  arts 
so  in  the  arts  of  cloth-weaving  and  of  many  other 
forms  of  human  endeavor,  there  was  an  artistic 
craftsmanship  such  as  we  have  lost  sight  of  to  a 
great  extent  in  our  age  of  machinery. 

The  Irish  poet,  Yeats,  in  bidding  a  group  of 
American  friends  good-bye  some  five  years  ago, 
said  that  we  had  many  opportunities  for  culture 


172  IDEAL  POPULAR  EDUCATION 

in  life  here  in  America,  but  we  must  be  careful 
to  take  them  fully  and  not  deceive  ourselves  with 
counterfeits,  or  we  would  surely  miss  something  of 
the  precious  privilege  and  development  that  might 
be  ours.  Amoj^g  other  things  he  said,  that  we 
must  not  forget  "  that  until  the  very  utensils  in 
the  kitchen  are  useful  as  well  as  beautiful  no 
nation  can  think  of  itself  as  really  cultured."  If 
men  and  women  can  bear  without  constraint  to 
handle  things  that  are  merely  useful  without 
beauty  in  them,  there  is  something  seriously  lack- 
ing in  their  culture.  Whatever  is  merely  useful 
is  hideous.  Nature  never  made  anything  that  was 
merely  useful  in  all  the  world's  history.  The 
things  of  nature  around  us  are  all  wonderful 
utilities  and  yet  charmingly  beautiful.  The  pretty 
flowers  are  seed  envelopes  meant  to  attract  birds 
and  insects,  so  that  the  seeds  may  be  scattered. 
The  beautiful  fruits  are  other  seed  envelopes 
meant  to  attract  man  and  the  animals,  so  that  the 
seeds  may  be  carried  far  and  wide.  The  leaves  of 
trees  are  eminently  useful  as  lungs  and  stomach 
and  yet  are  beautiful  and  have  a  wondrous  variety 
and  a  charm  all  their  own. 

This  precious  lesson  of  nature  they  seem  to 
have  understood  well  in  the  Middle  Ages  and 
applied  it  with  marvellous  perfection.  It  has 
often  been  called  to  attention  that  portions  of 
Gothic  edifices  in  dark  corners,  out  of  the  sight  of 
the  ordinary  visitor,  are  just  as  beautifully  deco- 
rated in  their  own  way  as  those  which  are  espe- 


IDEAL  POPULAR  EDUCATION  173 

cially  on  exhibition.  The  gravestones  in  their 
churches,  though  meant  to  be  trodden  under  foot 
and  often  covered  by  the  dirt  from  the  shoes  of 
passersb}^  yet  had  bronze  ornaments  that  are  so 
beautiful  that  in  the  modern  time  artists  take 
rubbings  of  them  so  as  to  carry  the  designs  away 
with  them.  While  every  portion  of  the  church 
is  beautiful,  the  same  thing  was  true  in  the  castles 
and  to  a  great  extent  in  their  own  homes.  The 
furniture  of  that  time,  even  in  the  houses  of 
smaller  tradesmen,  was  beautiful  in  its  simplicity, 
its  solidity,  its  charm  of  line,  and  then,  above  all, 
its  absolute  rejection  of  all  pretence  of  seeming 
to  be  anything  other  than  it  was.  Their  drinking 
cups  were  beautiful,  their  domestic  utensils  of 
various  kinds  had  charming  lines  and,  though  they 
did  not  have  as  many  as  we  have  in  the  modem 
time,  what  they  had  were  so  beautiful  that  now 
we  find  them  on  exhibition  in  museums,  and  we 
are  beginning  to  imitate  them  in  order  that  the 
wealthy  may  have  as  bric-a-brac  ornaments  in 
their  houses,  the  utensils  which  were  in  ordinary 
use  in  the  homes  of  the  middle  classes  of  the 
thirteenth  centuiy. 

There  was  a  satisfaction  for  the  workman  in 
making  all  these  beauteous  things.  He  knew,  as 
a  rule,  for  whom  they  were  to  be  made.  He  knew 
where  they  were  to  be  placed.  He  often  saw  his 
handiwork  afterwards.  His  reputation  depended 
on  it.  There  was  a  happiness  then  in  doing  it 
well,  and  in  taking  his  time  to  it,  that  surpasses 


174.  IDEAL  POPULAR  EDUCATION 

any  idle  pleasure  away  from  his  work,  as  happi- 
ness always  surpasses  pleasure.  There  was  the 
joy  of  the  doing,  and  joys  we  are  coming  to 
appreciate  mean  ever  so  much  more  than  pleas- 
ures. What  we  want  at  the  present  time  are 
more  joys  and  less  pleasures.  How  many  men 
and  women  were  blessed  in  that  time  because  they 
had  found  their  work.  That  is  the  only  real  hap- 
piness in  life.  How  profusely  it  was  scattered 
over  the  mediseval  world. 

Almost  nothing  that  was  made  was  of  a  char- 
acter that  could  be  done  by  mere  routine.  A  man 
had  to  occupy  both  mind  and  body  in  the  making 
of  the  textiles,  of  the  kitchen  utensils,  of  the  furni- 
ture, of  the  various  metal  utensils  required  for 
houses,  and  so  for  nearly  everything  else.  It  is 
the  workman  who  has  mere  routine  work  that  has 
opportunity  to  think  about  other  things  and 
brood  over  his  lot  and  grow  more  and  more  dis- 
satisfied. It  is  the  man  who  does  not  have  to 
give  his  mind  to  what  he  is  doing,  but  who  while 
his  body  grows  more  and  more  tired  accomplishing 
a  limited  set  of  constantly  repeated  movements, 
may  allow  his  mind  to  ponder  gloomily  over  his 
condition,  compare  it  with  that  of  others  and 
grow  envious,  who  has  the  worst  possible  seeds 
of  discontent  in  his  occupation. 

Men  who  did  this  sort  of  work  that  required 
active  mental  attention,  learned  to  think  for  them- 
selves. When  they  had  moments  of  leisure,  not 
having  newspapers  and  superficial  shallow  books 


IDEAL  POPULAR  EDUCATION  175 

to  waste  their  time  on,  they  did  some  thinking. 
Any  one  who  has  had  a  Httle  intimate  contact 
with  the  old-fashioned  artisans,  the  shoemakers, 
the  harnessmakers,  the  cabinetmakers  who  work 
at  benches,  the  woodcarvers,  men  who  have  real 
trades,  knows  how  often  one  finds  among  them  a 
deep,  serious  thinker  with  regard  to  the  problems 
of  life  around.  They  do  not  drink  in  other  peo- 
ple's opinions  and  then  think  that  they  are  think- 
ing, because  they  are  able  to  repeat  some  formulas 
of  words.  Such  men  are  not  easily  led.  They 
make  good  jurymen,  they  have  logic;  above  all, 
they  are  thoughtful.  There  must  have  been  much 
of  this  in  the  old  time  among  the  handicraftsmen 
of  the  Middle  Ages.  It  is  doubtless  to  this  that 
we  owe  the  fact  that  these  men  were  gradually 
organized  in  many  wonderful  ways  into  the  basic 
democracy  on  which  the  liberties  of  the  English- 
speaking  people  of  the  world  are  founded.  We 
shall  have  much  more  to  say  of  this  in  treating 
of  the  wonderful  fraternal  organizations,  with 
solutions  for  nearly  every  problem  of  social  need, 
which  these  men  succeeded  in  working  out  for 
themselves  in  times  considered  to  have  been  be- 
nighted. ^ 

There  was  another  phase  of  the  education  of 
these  members  of  the  gilds  that  is  even  more 
interesting  because  it  trenches  particularly  on  the 
intellectual  side  of  life,  the  provision  of  entertain- 
ment and  solves  an  important  social  problem. 
This  was  the  organization  of  dramatic  perform- 


176  IDEAL  POPULAR  EDUCATION 

ances  for  the  people  in  which  the  members  of  the 
gilds  took  part.  The  stories  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment and  of  the  New,  and  of  the  lives  of  the 
Saints,  and  of  various  incidents  connected  with 
Church  history,  were  worked  up  into  plays  and 
were  presented  in  the  various  cities.  We  have 
the  remains  of  many  cycles  of  these  plays.  They 
represent  the  beginnings  of  our  modern  dramatic 
literature.  They  were  simple  and  very  naive,  but 
they  were  interesting  and  they  concerned  some 
of  the  deepest  and  most  beautiful  thoughts  with 
which  man  has  ever  been  concerned.  The  mem- 
bers of  the  gilds  and  their  families  took  part  in 
them.  The  principal  sets  of  plays  were  given  in 
the  springtime  at  the  various  festivals  of  the 
Church,  so  frequent  then.  Most  of  the  spare 
time  from  Christmas  on,  especially  the  long  hours 
of  the  winter  evenings,  were  occupied  in  prepara- 
tions of  various  kinds  for  these  spring  dramatic 
performances.  It  is  impossible  to  conceive  of 
anything  more  likely  to  give  people  innocent 
and  joyful  yet  absorbing  occupations  of  mind 
than  these  preparations. 

Some  of  the  young  men  and  women  were  chosen 
as  the  actors  and  had  to  learn  their  parts  and  be 
rehearsing  them.  Choruses  had  to  be  trained,  cos- 
tumes had  to  be  made,  some  scenery  had  to  be 
arranged,  everything  was  done  by  the  members 
of  the  particular  gild  for  each  special  portion  of 
the  cycle  of  the  play  assigned  to  them.  Garments 
had  actually  to  be  manufactured  out  of  the  wool, 


IDEAL  POPULAR  EDUCATION  177 

the  dyeing  of  them  had  to  be  managed,  spangles 
had  to  be  made  for  them,  there  must  have  been 
busy  occupation  of  the  most  interesting  kind  for 
many  hands.  Of  course  it  is  easy  to  say  that 
these  naive  productions  could  not  have  meant 
very  much  for  the  people.  Any  one  who  thinks 
so,  however,  has  had  no  experience  with  private 
theatricals,  and  above  all  has  never  had  the  op- 
portunity to  see  how  much  they  mean  for  the 
occupation  of  j^oung  folks'  minds  and  the  keep- 
ing of  them  out  of  mischief  during  the  winter 
months  when  they  are  much  indoors.  When  the 
Jesuits  founded  their  great  schools  in  Europe 
they  laid  it  down  as  one  of  the  rules  of  the  insti- 
tute to  be  observed  in  all  their  schools,  that  plays 
in  certain  number  should  be  given  every  year, 
partly  for  the  sake  of  the  educational  effect  of 
such  occupation  with  dramatic  literature,  but 
mainly  because  of  the  interest  aroused  by  them 
and  the  occupation  of  mind  for  young  folks  which 
they  involve. 

As  to  how  much  they  may  mean,  perhaps  the 
best  way  for  those  of  our  day  to  realize  it  is  to 
take  the  example  of  Oberammergau  with  its 
great  Passion  Play  still  given.  Here  we  have  a 
typical  instance  of  a  Passion  play  of  the  olden 
time  maintaining  itself.  The  preparations  for  it 
occupy  the  villagers  in  their  mountain  home  not 
for  months  only,  but  for  years  before  it  is  given. 
It  represents  the  centre  of  the  village  life,  is  the 
main  portion  of  its  activities.     The  place  of  a 


178  IDEAL  POPULAR  EDUCATION 

family  with  regard  to  the  play  constitutes  its 
position  in  the  village  aristocracy.  Something  of 
this  must  have  been  true  in  the  gilds  of  the  Middle 
Ages  in  these  dramatic  performances.  Just  as 
at  Oberammergau  nearly  every  one  of  the  villa- 
gers has  something  to  do  or  is  in  some  way  con- 
nected with  the  preparation  of  the  play,  so  most 
of  the  members  of  the  particular  gilds  and  prob- 
ably their  families  had  some  connection  with  their 
plays.  The  children  had  their  interest  and  curi- 
osity aroused  and  were  allowed  to  help  in  their 
measure,  and  then  when  the  glorious  day  of  the 
performance  came,  there  must  have  been  joy  in 
the  hearts  of  all  and  rejoicing  over  its  success. 
This  is  the  sort  of  occupation  of  mind  that  we 
would  'like  to  be  able  to  provide  for  our  people 
in  the  cities  and  towns,  but  circumstances  are  such 
that  we  cannot. 

Those  who  would  think  that  these  old  Passion 
and  mystery  plays  meant  very  little  for  the  peo- 
ple who  did  not  take  part  in  them  and,  above  all, 
very  little  for  the  spectators,  in  an  educational 
way,  forget  entirely  that  this  side  of  the  work  of 
the  old  plays  can  also  be  studied  at  Oberam- 
mergau. This  little  town  of  1,400  inhabitants 
occupies  itself  for  years  to  such  good  effect  that, 
when  the  performances  are  given  crowds  flock 
from  all  over  the  world  to  witness  them.  When 
I  was  there  in  1900  I  think  that  I  saw  the  most 
cosmopolitan  gathering  that  I  had  ever  been  in, 
though  I  have  been  to  several  International  Medi- 


IDEAL  POPULAR  EDUCATION  179 

cal  Congresses.  There  were  Russians  and  Poles, 
and  Scandinavians  and  Americans  and  Austra- 
lians, and  there  stayed  in  the  house  with  us  a 
little  party  from  Buenos  Ayres,  and  our  seat 
companions  in  the  train  were  English,  who  had 
been  born  in  India,  and  they  pointed  out  to 
us  some  South  Africans  who  had  come  to  see  the 
Passion  Play.  This  village  of  1,400  inhabitants 
succeeds  in  producing  actors  who  are  capable  of 
arousing  thus  the  interest  of  the  world,  and  they 
have  artistic  taste  enough  to  mount  it  well,  and 
they  manage  their  performances  in  thoroughly 
dignified  fashion,  and  yet  in  many  ways  they  have 
the  simplicity  and,  above  all,  the  dear  old  simple 
faith  of  the  mediseval  people  from  whom  they 
come.  This  is  the  best  possible  evidence  that  we 
could  have  of  the  place  of  the  old  plays  in  the 
life  of  the  people. 

We  have  another  form  of  evidence  that  is  ex- 
tremely interesting.  Out  of  these  old  mystery 
plays,  dramas  of  the  Nativity  and  of  the  Passion 
with  the  introductions  and  interludes  to  these  cen- 
tral facts  of  creation,  there  developed  first  the 
morality  plays  and  then  the  drama  of  the  modem 
time.  Twice  in  the  history  of  the  world,  each  time 
quite  independent  of  the  other,  the  drama  has 
originated  anew  out  of  religious  ceremonials.  In 
old  Greece  this  is  the  origin  of  the  drama;  in  the 
Middle  Ages  exactly  the  same  thing  happened. 
Nor  was  this  origin  unworthy  in  any  way  of  the 
great  development  that  came.     Some  of  the  old 


180  IDEAL  POPULAR  EDUCATION 

mystery  plays  were  written  with  wonderful  dra- 
matic insight  and  with  a  capacity  to  bring  out 
dramatic  moments  that  is  very  admirable.  As  for 
the  morality  plays  we  have  had  one  of  them  re- 
peated to  us  in  recent  years,  "  Everyman,"  and 
well  it  has  served  to  show  how  able  was  the  genius 
of  these  old  dramatic  writers.  People  of  the  mod- 
ern sordid  time  listened  for  two  hours  enraptured 
and  then  went  away,  paying  the  tribute  of  silence 
to  this  wonderful  arrangement  of  the  ideas  con- 
nected with  such  a  familiar  theme  as  the  four  last 
things  to  be  remembered — death,  judgment, 
heaven  and  hell.  Fine  as  is  "  Everyman,"  there 
are  some  critics  who  think  the  "  Castle  of  Per- 
severance," written  about  the  same  time,  the  lat- 
ter part  of  the  fifteenth  century,  an  even  greater 
play. 

The  most  important  feature  of  this  work  in 
dramatics  of  the  old  gilds  was  not  the  entertain- 
ment, though  with  what  we  know  of  how  low 
entertainment  can  sink  and  how  much  it  can  mean 
for  degradation,  surely  that  would  be  sufficient, 
but  the  fact  that  all  of  the  workmen  and  their 
families  in  the  towns  were  occupied  with  the  high 
thoughts  and  the  beautiful  phrases  and  the  up- 
lifting motives  and  the  deep  significance  of  the 
Bible  stories.  These  are  so  simple  that  no  one 
could  fail  to  understand.  They  are  written  so 
close  to  the  heart  of  human  nature  that  even  the 
simplest  child  can  appreciate  their  meaning.  They 
are  full  of  the  most  precious  lessons,  yet  without 


IDEAL  POPULAR  EDUCATION  181 

any  of  that  moralizing  that  is  often  so  sterile  and 
so  characteristic  of  what  we  call  mere  preaching. 
All  the  townspeople  were  occupied  for  months 
beforehand  with  these  stories.  They  got  ever 
closer  and  closer  to  the  heart  of  the  mystery  in 
them.  Thej^  got  closer  thus  to  the  heart  of  the 
mystery  of  life.  They  were  made  to  feel  the 
presence  of  the  Creator  and  of  Providence  while 
occupying  themselves  with  thoughts  that  are  the 
essence  of  deepest  poetry.  AVhat  would  one  not 
give  to  be  able  to  occupy  a  great  number  of  peo- 
ple, for  many  hours  every  winter,  with  such 
thoughts,  not  alone  for  their  moral  effect  but  their 
real  educational  value.  They  did  not  add  useless 
information  to  useless  information,  but  they  did 
bring  development  of  mind  and,  above  all,  heart. 
In  my  book  "  The  Thirteenth  the  Greatest  of 
Centuries,"  *  I  tell  the  story  of  how  the  various 
trades  gilds  in  the  towns  divided  these  phases  of 
the  mystery  plays  among  themselves.  Every  one 
had  an  opportunity  to  do  something.  They  were 
the  tanners  and  the  plasterers,  the  cardmakers 
and  the  fullers,  the  coopers,  the  armorers,  the 
gaunters  and  glovers,  the  shipwrights,  the  pess- 
ners,  fishmongers  and  mariners,  the  parchment- 
makers  and  bookbinders,  the  hosiers,  the  spicers, 
the  pewterers  and  founders,  the  tylers  and  smiths, 
the  chandlers,  the  or  fevers,  the  goldsmiths,  the 
goldbeaters,  the  mbnej^-makers,  and  then  many 
other  trades  whose  names  sound  curious  to  us  of 

*  Catholic  Summer  School  Press,  New  York,  1907, 


182  IDEAL  POPULAR  EDUCATION 

the  modern  time.  The  bowyers  or  makers  of 
bows;  the  fletchers  or  arrow  featherers;  the  hay- 
resters  or  workers  in  horsehair,  the  bowlers  or 
bowlmakers,  the  feystours,  makers  of  saddle-trees; 
the  verrours,  glaciers ;  the  dubbers,  ref  urbishers  of 
clothes;  the  luminers  or  illuminators,  the  scriven- 
ers or  public  writers;  the  drapers,  the  mercers; 
the  lorymers  or  bridle-makers;  the  spurriers, 
makers  of  spurs;  the  cordwaners;  the  bladesmiths; 
the  curriers;  the  scalers,  and  many  others,  all  had 
their  chances  to  take  part  in  these  old  plays. 

They  were  not  being  entertained,  but  were 
themselves  active  agents  in  the  doing  of  things 
for  themselves  and  for  others.  This  is  what  brings 
real  contentment  with  it.  Superficial  entertain- 
ment that  occupies  the  surface  of  the  mind  for 
the  moment  means  very  little  for  real  recreation  of 
mind.  What  men  need  is  to  have  something  that 
makes  them  think  along  lines  different  to  those  in 
which  they  are  engaged  in  their  daily  work.  This 
gives  real  rest.  The  blood  gets  away  from  parts 
of  the  brain  where  it  has  been  all  day,  flows  to 
new  parts,  and  recreation  is  the  result.  Such 
entertainment,  however,  must  occupy  the  very 
centre  of  interest  for  the  moment  and  not  be  some- 
thing seen  in  passing  and  then  forgotten.  The 
modern  psychotherapeutist  would  say,  that  no  bet- 
ter amusement  than  this  could  possibly  be  ob- 
tained since  it  brought  real  diversion  of  mind. 
Above  all,  we  of  the  modern  time  who  know  how 
vicious,  how  immoral  in  its  tendencies,  how  sug- 


IDEAL  POPULAR  EDUCATION  183 

gestive  of  all  that  is  evil,  how  familiarizing  with 
what  is  worst  in  men  until  familiarity  begets  con- 
tempt, commercial  entertainment  in  the  shape  of 
dramatics,  so-called  at  least,  may  be,  cannot  help 
but  admire  and  envy  and  would  emulate,  if  we 
could,  this  fine  solution  of  a  very  pressing  social 
problem  that  the  gilds  found  in  an  educational 
feature  that  is  of  surpassing  value. 

There  are  three  post-graduate  courses  in  mod- 
ern life  that  are  quite  beyond  the  control  of  our 
educational  authorities,  though  we  talk  much  of 
our  interest  and  our  accomplishments  in  educa- 
tion. These  three  have  more  influence  over  the 
people  than  all  of  our  popular  education.  They 
are  the  newspaper,  the  library  and  the  theatre. 
Some  of  us  who  know  what  the  library  is  doing 
are  not  at  all  satisfied  with  it.  We  are  spend- 
ing an  immense  amount  of  money  mainly  to  fur- 
nish the  cheapest  kind  of  mere  superficial  amuse- 
ment to  the  people  of  our  cities.  In  so  doing  we 
are  probably  hurting  their  power  of  concentra- 
tion of  mind  instead  of  helping  it,  and  it  is  this 
concentration  of  mind  that  is  the  best  fruit  of 
education.  This  is,  however,  another  story.  Of 
the  newspaper,  as  we  now  have  it,  the  less  said 
the  better.  It  is  bringing  our  j^oung  people 
particularly  into  intimate  contact  with  many  of 
the  vicious  and  brutalizing  things  of  life,  the  sex 
crimes,  brutal  murders  and  prize-fights,  so  that 
uplift  and  refinement  almost  become  impossible. 
As  for  the  theatre,  no  one  now  thinks  of  it  as 


184.  IDEAL  POPULAR  EDUCATION 

educationally  valuable.  Our  plays  are  such  super- 
ficial presentations  of  the  life  around  us  that 
once  they  have  had  their  run  no  one  thinks  of 
reviving  them.  This  is  the  better  side  of  the  thea- 
tre. The  worst  side  is  absolutely  in  the  hands  of 
the  powers  of  evil  and  is  confessedly  growing 
worse  all  the  time. 

Besides  these  indirect  educational  features  the 
gilds  encouraged  certain  formal  educational  in- 
stitutions that  are  of  great  interest,  and  that  have 
been  misunderstood  for  several  centuries  until 
recent  years.  In  many  places  they  maintained 
grammar  schools  and  these  grammar  schools  were 
eminently  successful  in  helping  to  make  scholars 
of  such  of  the  sons  of  the  members  of  the  gilds 
as  wanted  to  lift  themselves  above  their  trades 
into  the  intellectual  life.  We  know  more  about 
the  grammar  school  at  Stratford-on-Avon  than 
of  any  of  the  others.  The  reason  for  this  is  that 
we  have  been  interested  in  the  antiquities  of 
Shakespeare's  town  and  the  conditions  which  ob- 
tained in  it,  before  as  well  as  during  his  lifetime. 
The  Gild  of  the  Holy  Cross  of  Stratford  main- 
tained a  grammar  school  in  which  many  pupils 
were  educated.  That  this  was  not  a  singular 
feature  of  gild  work  is  evident  from  what  we  know 
of  many  other  gilds.  These  gild  schools  were  sup- 
pressed in  the  reformation  time  and  then  later 
had  to  be  replaced  by  the  so-called  Edward  VI 
grammar  schools,  in  one  of  which  it  is  usually  said 
that  Shakespeare  was  educated.     As  the  English 


IDEAL  POPULAR  EDUCATION  185 

historian  Gairdner  declared  not  long  since  in  his 
"  History  of  the  Pre-Reformation  Times  in  Eng- 
land," Edward  has  obtained  a  reputation  for 
foundations  in  charity  and  in  education  that  he 
by  no  means  deserved.  The  schools  founded  by 
him  particularly  were  nothing  more  than  re- 
establishments  of  popular  schools  of  the  olden 
time  whose  endowment  had  been  confiscated.  The 
new  foundations  were  makeshifts  to  appease  popu- 
lar clamor. 

The  old  gilds  did  not  believe  in  devoting  all 
the  early  years  of  children  to  mere  book-learning. 
Some  few  with  special  aptitudes  for  this  were 
provided  with  opportunities.  The  rest  were  edu- 
cated in  various  ways  at  home  until  their  ap- 
prenticeship to  a  trade  began,  and  then  their  real 
education  commenced.  Our  own  experience  with 
education  in  the  early  years  from  six  to  eight  or 
nine  is  'not  particularly  favorable.  Children  who 
enter  school  a  little  later  than  the  legal  age 
graduate  sooner  and  with  even  higher  marks  than 
those  who  begin  at  the  age  of  six.  This  has  been 
shown  by  statistics  in  England  in  many  cities. 
What  is  learned  with  so  much  fuss  and  worry 
and  bother  for  the  children  and  the  teachers  from 
six  to  eight,  is  rapidly  picked  up  in  a  few  months 
at  the  age  of  eight  or  nine,  and  then  is  better 
assimilated.  The  grammar  schools  of  the  gilds 
took  the  children  about  the  age  of  nine  or  ten  and 
then  gave  them  education  in  letters.  That  educa- 
tion, by  the  way,  began  at  six  in  the  morning  and. 


186  IDEAL  POPULAR  EDUCATION 

with  two  hours  of  intervals,  continued  until  four 
in  the  afternoon.  They  believed  in  the  eight-hour 
day  for  children,  but  they  began  it  good  and 
early  so  that  artificial  light  might  not  constitute 
a  problem. 

The  best  schooling,  however,  afforded  by  the 
gilds,  after  that  in  self-help  of  course,  was  that 
in  mutual  aid.  We  are  establishing  schools  of 
philanthropy  in  the  modern  time  and  we  talk 
much  about  the  organization  of  charity  and  other 
phases  of  mutual  aid.  In  this  as  in  everything 
else  we  map  out,  as  George  Eliot  once  said,  our 
ignorance  of  things,  or  at  least  our  gropings  after 
solutions  of  problems,  in  long  Greek  names,  which 
often  serve  to  produce  the  idea  that  we  know 
ever  so  much  more  about  these  subjects  than  we 
really  do.  The  training  in  brotherlj'^  love  and 
helpfulness  in  the  old  gilds  was  a  fine  school. 
Those  who  think  that  it  is  only  now  that  ideas 
of  mutuality  in  sharing  responsibilities,  of  co- 
operation and  co-ordination  of  effort  for  the  bene- 
fit of  all,  of  community  interests,  are  new,  should 
study  Toulmin  Smith's  work  on  the  gilds,  or  read 
Brentano  on  the  foreign  gilds.  There  is  not  a 
phase  of  our  organization  of  charity  in  the  mod- 
ern time  that  was  not  well  anticipated  by  the 
members  of  the  gilds,  and  that,  too,  in  ways  such 
as  we  cannot  even  hope  to  rival  unless  we  change 
the  basis  on  which  our  helpfulness  is  founded. 
Theirs  was  not  a  stooping  down  of  supposed  bet- 
ter, or  so-called  upper  classes,  to  help  the  lower, 


IDEAL  POPULAR  EDUCATION  187 

but  organization  among  the  people  to  help  them- 
selves so  that  there  was  in  no  sense  a  pauperiza- 
tion. ' 
Every  phase  of  human  need  was  looked  to. 
We  are  just  beginning  to  realize  our  obligations 
to  care  for  the  old,  and  the  last  twenty  years  has 
seen  various  efforts  on  the  part  of  governments 
to  provide  old-age  pensions.  In  the  Middle 
Ages  according  to  the  laws  of  the  gilds  the  man 
who  had  paid  his  dues  for  seven  years  would  then 
draw  a  weekly  pension  equal  to  something  more 
than  five  dollars  now,  for  all  the  rest  of  his  life 
if  he  were  disabled  by  injury,  or  had  become 
incapacitated  from  old  age  or  illness.  Then  there 
were  gilds  to  provide  insurance  against  loss  by 
fire,  loss  by  robbery  on  land  and  also  on  sea,  loss 
by  shipwreck,  loss  even  by  imprisonment  and  all 
other  phases  of  human  needs.  If  the  workman 
were  injured  his  family  nursed  him  during  the 
day  but  a  brother  member  of  the  gild,  as  we 
have  said,  was  sent  to  care  for  him  at  night,  and  a 
good  portion  of  his  wages  went  on,  paid  to  him 
out  of  the  gild  chest.  If  he  died  his  widow  and 
orphans  were  cared  for  by  a  special  pension.  The 
widow  did  not  have  to  break  up  the  family  and 
send  the  children  to  orphan  asylums.  There  were 
practically  no  orphan  asylums.  The  gilds  cared 
for  the  children  of  dead  members.  As  the  boys 
grew  up  special  attention  was  given  them  so  as 
to  provide  a  trade  for  them,  and  they  were  given 
earlier  opportunities  than  others  to  get  on  in  life. 


188  IDEAL  POPULAR  EDUCATION 

The  orphans  were  the  favorite  children  of  the 
gilds,  and  instead  of  a  child  being  handicapped 
by  the  loss  of  his  parents  when  he  was  young, 
it  sometimes  happened  that  he  got  better  oppor- 
tunities than  if  his  parents  lived. 

These  gilds  provided  opportunities  for  social 
entertainment  and  friendly  intercourse  and  for 
such  acquaintanceship  as  would  afford  mutual 
pleasure  and  give  opportunities  for  the  meeting 
of  the  young  folks, — sons  and  daughters  of  the 
members  of  the  gild.  They  had  their  yearly  bene- 
fit at  which  the  wives  of  the  members  and  their 
sweethearts  were  supposed  by  rule  to  come,  and 
then  they  had  other  meetings  and  social  gather- 
ings— picnics  in  the  countrj^  in  the  summer,  dances 
in  the  winter  time  and  all  in  a  circle  where  every 
one  knew  every  one  else,  and  all  went  well. 
These  are  some  social  features  of  these  gilds  edu- 
cational in  the  highest  sense  that  we  can  well  envy 
in  the  modern  time,  when  we  find  it  so  difficult 
to  secure  innocent,  happy  pleasures  for  young 
people  that  will  not  leave  a  bad  taste  in  the  mouth 
afterwards.  When  a  member  of  the  gild  died 
his  brother  members  attended  the  INIass  which  was 
said  for  him  and  gave  a  certain  amount  in  charity 
that  was  meant  to  be  applied  for  his  benefit.  The 
whole  outlook  on  life  was  eminently  ^  brotherly. 
There  has  never  been  such  a  teaching  of  true  fra- 
ternity, of  the  brotherhood  of  man,  of  the  neces- 
sity for  mutual  aid  and  then  of  such  practice  of 
it  as  makes  it  easy,  as  among  these  old  gilds. 


IDEAL  POPULAR  EDUCATION  189 

The  finest  result  of  this  teaching  is  to  be  seen 
in  the  democratic  spirit  that  gradually  arose  as  a 
consequence  of  these  gilds  and  their  teaching  of 
self-government  in  all  local  affairs  to  the  people. 
The  gilds  were  arranged  and  organized  in  the 
various  parishes.  These  parishes  were  independ- 
ent communities  for  local  affairs  who  had  charge 
of  the  police  system,  the  health,  the  road-making, 
the  path-keeping,  the  boundary-guarding  and,  in 
general,  the  comfort  and  convenience  of  the  com- 
munity. The  gildsmen,  more  than  any  others, 
were  the  factors  in  these  parishes.  They  accumu- 
lated money  for  the  various  purposes  and  had 
great  influence  in  the  development  of  the  com- 
munity life  and  the  solution  of  local  government 
problems. 

It  would  be  very  easy  to  think  that  the  gilds 
could  not  have  fulfilled  all  these  duties  and  sub- 
served all  these  needs.  If  we  recall,  however,  that 
there  were  30,000  gilds  in  England  at  the  end  of 
the  fifteenth  century,  when  there  were  not  more 
than  4,000,000  of  people  in  the  whole  country, 
then  we  can  see  how  much  could  be  accomplished. 
Alas,  at  the  beginning  of  the  next  century  all 
their  moneys  were  confiscated,  and  because  they 
were  Church  societies,  every  one  of  them  requir- 
ing attendance  at  Church  duties  and  at  INI  ass,  as 
well  as  at  the  INIasses  for  the  dead,  but,  above  all, 
for  the  crime  of  having  money  in  their  treasuries 
at  a  time  when  the  King  needed  money  and  his 
appetite  had  been  whetted  by  the  spoil  of  the  mon- 


190  IDEAL  POPULAR  EDUCATION 

asteries  and  the  churches,  the  gilds  were  obHter- 
ated.  Only  a  few  of  them  in  London  that  had 
powerful  protectors  and  that  escaped  on  the  plea 
that  they  were  commercial  organizations  and  not 
religious  societies,  were  able  to  preserve  something 
of  their  old-time  integrity.  These  are  now  so 
rich  that  they  are  the  wonder  of  those  who  know 
them.  They  give  us  a  good  idea,  however,  of  the 
deep  foundations  that  had  been  established  out 
of  the  common  chest  in  the  purchase  of  property 
for  these  gilds. 

In  solving  the  problems  of  industrial  insurance, 
of  providing  for  the  widows  and  the  orphans,  of 
securing  annuities  when  they  would  be  needed, 
these  gilds  set  us  an  example  that  it  would  be 
well  for  us  to  follow.  The  insurance  money  was 
not  accumulated  in  such  huge  sums  that  it  would 
be  a  constant  temptation  for  exploitation  on  the 
part  of  officials.  It  was  distributed  in  compara- 
tively small  sums  in  many  thousands  of  treasuries, 
and  was  under  the  surveillance  of  those  most  in- 
terested in  it.  The  old-age  pensions  were  not 
governmental,  issued  in  large  numbers  and  open 
to  inevitable  abuses,  but  were  given  by  those  who 
knew,  to  those  whose  necessities  were  well  known. 

No  wonder  that  we  find  democratic  govern- 
ment developing  co-ordinately  with  these  gilds. 
At  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century  INIagna 
Charta  was  signed.  About  the  middle  of  it  the 
first  English  Parliament  met,  before  the  end  of 
it   the   proper    representation   of   the    cities    and 


IDEAL  POPULAR  EDUCATION  191 

towns  which  were  mainly  controlled  by  the  gilds 
was  secured  and  during  the  last  quarter  of  it 
the  English  Common  Law  came  into  effect  so  as 
to  secure  the  rights  of  all.  Bracton's  great  "  Di- 
gest of  the  English  Common  Law  "  was  written 
about  1280,  and  it  is  still  the  great  sourcebook 
of  the  principles  of  law  in  English-speaking  coun- 
tries. In  many  of  the  States  of  our  Union  the 
Supreme  Courts  still  make  their  decisions  on  the 
basis  of  the  English  Common  Law,  and  until  a 
decade  or  two  ago  all  of  them  did.  The  people's 
rights  were  secured  by  the  education  of  the  peo- 
ple and  the  property  laws  and  those  for  the  guard- 
ianship of  the  person  and  for  the  prevention  of 
autocratic  interference  with  liberty  were  all  of 
them  put  into  effect  as  a  consequence  of  this  edu- 
cation in  democracy. 

This,  then,  was  surely  an  ideal  teaching  of  the 
masses,  a  teaching  of  the  arts  and  crafts,  a  teach- 
ing of  mutual  aid,  a  teaching  of  true  fraternity,  a 
teaching  of  book-learning  whenever  that  was  con- 
sidered necessary  or  advisable,  a  teaching  of  the 
rights  of  man  and  a  wonderful  development  of 
laws  as  a  consequence,  and  all  of  this  accom- 
plished not  by  the  upper  classes,  stooping  to  lift 
the  lower  classes,  but  out  of  the  conscious  de- 
velopment of  the  lower  classes  themselves,  so  that 
there  came  a  true  evolution  and  not  merely  a 
superficial  influence  from  without.  If  we  want 
to  know  how  to  teach  the  masses  and  to  help  them 
to   contentment,   happiness,   occupation  of  mind, 


192  IDEAL  POPULAR  EDUCATION 

uplifting  entertainment,  cheerful  amusement  and, 
above  all,  to  conscious  democratic  government, 
here  is  the  model  of  it  as  it  can  be  found  nowhere 
else.  I  commend  it  to  those  who  are  teaching 
and  who,  realizing  the  failure  of  our  modern  edu- 
cation in  many  ways,  are  looking  about  for  the 
remedies  that  will  help  to  make  our  popular  edu- 
cation more  efficient. 

The  soul  of  this  ideal  education  of  the  masses 
was  the  training  of  character.  They  had  no 
illusions  that  the  mere  imparting  of  information 
would  make  people  better  nor  that  the  knowing 
of  many  things  would  make  them  more  desirable 
citizens.  Probably  they  did  not  consciously  rea- 
son much  about  these  subjects,  but  their  instincts 
led  them  straight.  Mr.  Edward  O.  Sisson,  writ- 
ing in  the  Atlantic  MontJily  for  July,  1910,  saiys 
that  the  final  question  regarding  education  is 
whether  it  avails  to  produce  the  type  of  character 
required  by  the  republic  (nation)  and  the  race. 
To  accomplish  this  we  need  to  fit  our  practice  to 
Herbart's  great  formula  that,  "  the  chief  business 
of  education  is  the  ethical  revelation  of  the  uni- 
verse." Take  any  part  of  this  system  of  educa- 
tion that  I  have  called  the  ideal  education  of  the 
masses  and  try  it  by  that  standard  and  see  how 
high  its  mark  will  be.  Their  handiwork  is  mainly 
an  act  of  devotion  to  the  God  of  the  universe  and 
its  products  are  the  most  beautiful  gifts  that  ever 
were  offered  to  him.  Cathedral  stonework,  glass- 
work,  ironwork,  beautiful  sacred  vessels,  handsomest 


IDEAL  POPULAR  EDUCATION  193 

vestments  ever  made,  needlework,  laeework,  the 
beautiful  setting  of  the  cathedral;  what  an  act 
of  worship  it  all  was!  When  it  was  finished,  it 
belonged  to  no  class  but  to  the  whole  people.  It 
was  theirs  to  be  proud  of  and  to  worship  in. 

Their  verj'  amusements  were  often  acts  of  wor- 
ship. Their  plays  concerned  the  revelations  of 
God  to  man,  for  the}'^  were  all  founded  on  the 
Bible,  and  even  for-  those  who  may  not  accept 
those  revelations  as  divine  the  fact  that  the  men 
and  women,  the  masses,  the  handworkmen  and  the 
little  traders,  were  for  many  months  in  each  year 
engaged  with  the  high  ethical  thoughts  that  con- 
stitute the  greatest  contribution  to  the  ethical 
revelation  of  the  universe  that  we  have  in  litera- 
ture, must  of  itself  be  an  eminently  satisfying 
feature  of  this  old-time  education.  As  regards 
the  Creator,  these  people  were  constantly  made 
famihar  with  Him,  His  works  and  ways.  Their 
holidaj'^s  were  holy-days.  They  were  anniversa- 
ries in  the  life  of  the  God-^Ian  or  His  chosen 
servants.  The  men  and  women  whom  they  cele- 
brated on  those  days  were  chosen  characters  who 
had  devoted  themselves  unselfishly  to  others,  so 
that  the  after-time  hailed  them  as  saints  because 
of  their  forgetfulness  of  self.  We  know  what  this 
constantly  recurring  reminder  of  the  lives  of  great 
men  and  women  may  be,  and  then  we  must  not 
forget  that  on  these  days  in  their  great  cathedral 
they  heard  the  story  of  the  life  of  the  saint  of  the 
day,  and  often  a  discourse  on  the  qualities  that 


194  IDEAL  POPULAR  EDUCATION 

stamped  him  or  her  as  worthy  of  admiration. 
Let  us  remember,  above  all,  that  there  were  as 
many  women  saints  as  men,  and  that  these  were 
held  up  for  the  admiration  and  emulation  of  grow- 
ing youth.  This  was  ethical  training  at  every 
turn  in  life. 

Above  all,  there  was  constant  training  in  that 
thoughtfulness  for  others  that  means  so  much  in 
any  true  system  of  education.  When  members  of 
the  gilds  fell  ill,  their  families  nursed  them  dur- 
ing the  day,  but  members  of  the  gilds  chosen 
for  that  purpose  nursed  them  at  night.  It  was 
felt  that  the  family  did  quite  enough  not  to  ex- 
haust itself  by  night  watching.  When  brother 
members  of  the  gild  died  their  fellows  attended 
their  funeral  in  a  body,  and,  above  all,  took  part 
in  the  Mass  for  their  souls.  People  who  do  not 
understand  the  Catholic  idea  of  Mass  for  the  dead 
will  not  appreciate  this  in  the  way  that  Catholics 
do,  but  at  least  they  will  understand  the  brother- 
liness  of  the  act  and  the  beautiful  purpose  that 
prompted  so  many  to  gather,  in  order  that  even 
after  death  they  might  do  whatever  they  could  for 
this  departed  brother.  Besides  the  death  of  a 
brother  gildsman  was  the  signal  for  the  giving  of 
alms  because  the  merit  of  these  alms,  it  was  felt, 
could  be  transferred  to  his  account,  and  so  the 
bond  of  fraternity  continued  even  in  the  life  be- 
yond. The  ethical  effect  of  all  this  on  the  minds 
of  people  who  sincerely  believed  can  scarcely  be 
exaggerated.     Here  is  a  training  of  the  will  and 


IDEAL  POPULAR  EDUCATION  195 

of  character,  and  a  teaching  of  the  relationship  of 
man  to  man  and  of  man  to  the  Creator  carried 
out  into  all  the  smallest  details  of  life. 

Above  all,  these  generations  had  a  training  in 
personal  service  for  one  another.  Every  one  ex- 
ercised charity.  It  was  not  a  few  of  the  very 
wealthy  who  practised  philanthropy.  They  had 
safeguards  which,  as  far  as  is  possible,  prevented 
abuse  of  this  charity.  The  alms,  for  instance, 
that  was  given  on  the  occasion  of  a  brother's 
funeral  was  not  distributed  hit  or  miss  and  all  at 
one  time,  but  members  of  the  gild  bought  from 
the  treasurer  tokens  which  might  be  redeemed  in 
bread  and  meat  or  in  cast-off  clothing  or  in  some 
other  way.  These  were  distributed  to  the  poor  as 
they  seemed  to  need  them.  If  you  met  a  poor 
man  who  seemed  really  in  want  you  could  give 
him  one  or  more  of  these  tokens  and  then  be 
sure  that  while  he  would  get  whatever  was  neces- 
sary to  supply  his  absolute  needs,  he  would  not  be 
able  to  abuse  charity.  In  our  time  w^e  constantly 
have  stories  of  large  accumulations  on  the  part 
of  street  beggars  who  own  valuable  property  and 
have  accounts  in  savings  banks  and  the  like. 
There  was  no  possibility  of  this  under  the  mediaeval 
system  and  yet  charity  was  widely  exercised,  every 
one  took  some  part  in  it,  and  there  was  that  train- 
ing, not  only  in  effective  pity  for  affliction,  but 
also  in  helpfulness  for  others,  which  means  so 
much  more  than  the  exercise  of  occasional  charity, 
because,  for  the  moment,  one  is  touched  by  the 


196  IDEAL  POPULAR  EDUCATION 

sight  of  suffering  or  has  remorse  because  one  feels 
that  one  has  been  indulging  one's  self  and  wants 
the  precious  satisfaction  that  will  come  from  a 
little  making  up  for  luxurious  extravagance. 

In  our  time,  when  we  have  gradually  excluded 
moral  teaching  and  training  almost  entirely  from 
our  schools  and  our  methods  of  education,  this 
phase  of  the  ideal  education  of  the  masses  is  par- 
ticularly interesting.  Milton  declared  that  "  the 
main  skill  and  groundwork  of  education  will 
be  to  temper  the  pupils  with  such  lectures  and 
explanations  as  will  draw  them  into  willing  obedi- 
ence, inflamed  with  the  study  of  learning  and 
the  admiration  of  virtue,  stirred  up  with  high 
hopes  of  living  to  be  brave  men  and  worthy 
patriots."  Their  great  stone-books,  the  cathe- 
drals, where  all  who  came  could  read  the  life  of 
the  Lord,  the  frequent  reminders  of  the  lives  of 
the  saints,  doers  among  men  who  forgot  them- 
selves and  thought  of  others,  the  fraternal  obliga- 
tions of  the  gilds  and  their  intercourse  with  each 
other,  all  these  constituted  the  essence  of  an 
education  as  nearly  like  that  demanded  by  Milton 
as  can  well  be  imagined.  It  seems  far-fetched  to 
go  back  five,  six,  even  seven  centuries  to  find  such 
ideals  in  practice,  but  the  educator  who  is  serious 
and  candid  with  himself  will  find  it  easy  to  dis- 
cover the  elements  of  a  wonderful  intellectual 
and,  above  all,  moral  training  of  the  people,  that 
is  the  whole  people  from  the  lowest  to  the  highest, 
in  these  early  days. 


CYCLES    OF    FEMININE    EDUCATION 
AND  INFLUENCE 


"  And  if  I  am  right  nothing  can  be  more  foolish  than 
our  modern  fashion  of  training  men  and  women  differ- 
ently, whereby  one-half  of  the  power  of  the  city  is  lost. 
For  rejflect — if  women  are  not  to  have  the  education  of 
men  some  other  must  be  found  for  them,  and  what  other 
can  we  propose?" — ^Plato,  Laws  (Jowett),  p.  82. 
Scribner,  1902. 


CYCLES    OF    FEMININE    EDUCATION 
AND  INFLUENCE  * 

Nothing  is  commoner  than  to  suppose  that 
what  we  are  doing  at  the  present  day  is  an 
improvement  over  whatever  they  were  doing  at 
any  time  in  the  past  in  the  same  Hne.  We  were 
rather  proud  during  the  nineteenth  century  to 
talk  of  that  century  as  the  century  of  evolution. 
Evolutionary  terms  of  all  kinds  found  their  way 
even  into  everyday  speech  and  a  very  general  im- 
pression was  produced  that  we  are  in  the  midst 
of  progress  so  rapid  and  unerring,  that  even  from 
decade  to  decade  it  is  possible  to  trace  the  wonder- 
ful advance  that  man  is  making.  We  look  back 
on  the  early  nineteenth  century  as  quite  hopelessly 
backward.  They  had  no  railroads,  no  street-car 
lines,  no  public  street  lighting,  no  modes  of  heat- 
ing buildings  that  gave  any  comfort  in  the  cold 
weather,  no  elevators,  and  when  we  compare  our 
present  comfortable  condition  with  the  discom- 
forts of  that  not  so  distant  period,  we  feel  how 
much  evolution  has  done  for  us,  and  inevitably 

*  The  material  for  this  was  gathered  for  a  lecture  on  the  History  of 
Education  delivered  for  the  Academy  of  the  Sacred  Heart,  Kenwood, 
Albany,  N.  Y.,  and  St.  Joseph's  College,  Chestnut  Hill,  Philadelphia, 
Pa.  Very  nearly  in  its  present  form  the  address  was  delivered  before 
the  League  for  the  Ci^ic  Education  of  Women,  at  the  Colony  Club, 
New  York  City,  in  the  winter  of  1910. 

199 


200   FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE 

conclude  that  just  as  much  progress  as  has  been 
made  in  transportation  and  in  comfort,  has  also 
been  made  in  the  things  of  the  mind,  and,  above 
all,  in  education,  so  that,  while  the  millennium 
is  not  yet  here,  it  cannot  surely  be  far  off;  and 
men  are  attaining  at  last,  with  giant  strides,  the 
great  purpose  that  runs  through  the  ages. 

Probably  in  nothing  is  the  assumption  that  we 
are  doing  something  far  beyond  what  was  ever 
accomplished  before,  more  emphatically  expressed 
than  in  the  ordinary  opinions  as  to  what  is  being 
done  by  and  for  women  in  our  generation.  We 
have  come  to  think  that  at  last  in  the  course  of 
evolution  woman  is  beginning  to  come  into  some- 
thing of  her  rights,  she  is  at  last  getting  her  op- 
portunity for  the  higher  education  and  for  pro- 
fessional education  so  far  as  she  wants  it,  and  as  a 
consequence  is  securing  that  influence  which,  as  the 
equal  of  man,  she  should  have  in  the  world.  Now 
there  is  just  one  thing  with  regard  to  this  very 
general  impression  which  deserves  to  be  called 
particularly  to  attention.  This  is  not  the  first 
time  in  the  world's  history,  nor  the  first  by  many 
times,  that  woman  has  had  the  opportunity  for  the 
higher  education  and  has  taken  it  very  well. 
Neither  is  it  the  first  time  that  she  has  insisted  on 
having  an  influence  in  public  affairs,  but  on  the 
contrary,  we  can  readih^  find  a  very  curious  series 
of  cycles  of  feminine  education  and  of  the  exer- 
cise of  public  influence  by  women,  with  intervals 
of  almost  negative  phases  in  these  matters  that 


FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE   201 

are  rather  difficult  to  explain.  Let  us  before  try- 
ing to  understand  what  the  feministic  movement 
means  in  our  own  time  and,  above  all,  before  try- 
ing to  sum  up  its  ultimate  significance  for  the 
race,  study  some  of  the  corresponding  movements 
in  former  times. 

The  most  interesting  phase  of  the  woman  move- 
ment in  history  is  that  which  occurred  at  the  time 
of  the  Renaissance.  Because  it  is  typical  of  the 
phases  of  the  feministic  movement  at  all  times, 
and  then,  too,  because  it  is  closer  to  us  and  the 
records  of  it  are  more  complete,  it  will  be  ex- 
tremely interesting  to  follow  out  some  of  the 
details  of  it.  It  may  be  necessary  for  that  to 
make  a  little  excursion  into  the  history  of  the 
period.  During  the  early  fifteenth  centurj^  the 
Turks  were  bothering  Constantinople  so  much, 
that  Greek  scholars,  rendered  uncomfortable  at 
home,  began  making  their  way  over  into  Italy 
rather  frequently,  bringing  with  them  precious 
manuscripts  and  remains  of  old  Greek  art.  Be- 
sides commerce  aroused  by  the  Crusades  was  mak- 
ing the  intercourse  between  East  and  West  much 
more  intimate  than  it  had  been  and,  as  a  result, 
a  taste  for  Greek  letters  and  art  was  beginning 
to  be  felt  in  certain  portions  of  Italy.  When 
Constantinople  fell,  about  the  middle  of  the  fif- 
teenth century,  the  prestige  of  the  old  capital  of 
the  Greek  empire  was  lost,  and  scholars  abandoned 
it  for  Italy  in  large  numbers.  This  is  the  time 
of  the  Renaissance.     The  rebirth  that  the  word 


202   FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE 

signifies,  is  not  a  rebirth  of  art  and  architecture 
and  literature  into  the  modern  world,  as  if  there 
had  been  nothing  before,  for  Gothic  art  and  archi- 
tecture and  literature  is  quite  as  wonderful,  if 
not  more  so,  than  anything  that  came  after,  and 
there  are  good  authorities  who  insist  that  the 
Renaissance  hurt,  rather  than  helped,  Europe. 
The  Renaissance  was  a  rebirth  of  Greek  ideas  and 
ideals  in  aesthetics  into  the  European  world,  and 
while  we  may  not  agree  with  Sir  Henry  Maine 
that  whatever  lives  and  moves  in  the  intellectual 
world  is  Greek  in  origin,  there  is  no  doubt  that 
Greek  can  be  the  source  of  most  wonderful  in- 
centive and  such  it  proved  to  be  during  the  fif- 
teenth century. 

Men  and  women  began  to  study  Greek  and 
they  paid  much  more  attention  as  a  consequence 
to  the  Latin  classics  modelled  on  the  Greek,  and 
so  the  New  Learning,  the  so-called  humanities, 
became  the  centre  of  intellectual  interest.  They 
were  studied  first  in  private  schools,  but  before 
long  a  place  for  these  new  studies  was  demanded 
in  the  curriculum  of  the  universities.  The  uni- 
versities, however,  were  occupied  with  the  so- 
called  seven  liberal  arts,  which  were  really  scien- 
tific studies.  There  was  geometry,  astronomy, 
music,  grammar,  rhetoric,  logic  and  metaphysics, 
with  considerable  ethics  and  political  science,  so 
that  they  resembled  in  many  ways  our  modern 
universities  as  they  have  been  transformed  since 
the  re-introduction  of  scientific  studies  into  them. 


FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE   203 

The  university  faculties  were  content  and  con- 
servative after  the  fashion  of  universities  ever, 
and  they  quite  naturally  refused  to  entertain 
the  notion  of  such  a  radical  change  as  the  intro- 
duction of  classical  studies  into  the  curriculum. 
This  is  just  exactly  what  the  classical  universities 
of  the  early  nineteenth  century  did  when  they 
were  asked  by  scientific  enthusiasts  to  re-introduce 
scientific  studies  into  the  curriculum,  which  in  the 
course  of  300  years  had  come  to  be  made  up  al- 
most exclusively  of  classical  studies.  In  this  curi- 
ous way  does  history  repeat  itself. 

Unable  to  obtain  a  place  for  the  studies  in 
humanism  in  the  universities,  ruling  princes  and 
wealthy  members  of  the  nobility  proceeded  to 
found  special  schools  for  these  subjects.  In 
these  schools  without  the  traditions  of  the  past, 
the  women  asked  and  obtained  the  privilege  of 
studying.  There  had  come  a  noteworthy  change 
in  intellectual  interest,  a  novelty  was  introduced 
into  education.  Whenever  that  happens  woman 
always  asks  and  always  obtains  the  privilege  of 
the  higher  education.  During  the  Renaissance 
period  she  proceeded  to  show  her  intellectual 
power.  INI  any  of  the  women  of  the  Renaissance 
became  distinguished  for  scholarship.  Perhaps 
one  thing  should  be  noted  with  regard  to  that. 
Their  reputation  for  scholarship  was  largely  con- 
fined to  their  j^ounger  years.  They  were  more 
precocious,  .or  applied  themselves  better  to  their 
studies,  and  accordingly  knew  more  of  the  classics 


204    FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE 

at  twenty  than  their  male  relatives  who  had  the 
same  opportunities.  Indeed  we  hear  of  them  as 
brilliant  scholars  at  sixteen  and  seventeen  and 
eighteen.  They  took  part  in  Latin  plays  that 
were  brilliantly  performed  before  the  nobility, 
higher  ecclesiastics,  cardinals  and  even  the  Popes. 
They  were  brilliant  in  music,  in  the  languages  and 
in  their  taste  for  art.  Later  on  in  life  we  do  not 
hear  so  much  of  them.  They  evidently  were 
ready  to  leave  the  serious  work  of  scholarship  to 
the  men  and  content  themselves  with  being  en- 
lightened patrons  of  literature,  beneficent  advo- 
cates of  the  arts,  liberal  customers  of  the  artistic 
geniuses  of  the  time.  Above  all,  we  find  no 
great  original  works  from  them.  They  are  charm- 
ing appreciators  but  not  good  inventors — at  this 
time,  of  course. 

While  they  do  not  occupy  themselves  with  dry- 
as-dust  scholarship,  there  is  no  doubt  at  all  that 
much  of  the  glory  of  the  Renaissance,  with  its 
great  revivals  in  art  and  letters,  is  due  to  the 
women  of  the  time.  It  was  they  who  insisted  on 
the  building  of  the  town  houses,  finely  decorated 
and  with  charming  objects  of  art  in  them.  It  was 
for  them  that  the  artists  of  the  time  made  many 
beautiful  things.  They  were  very  often  the  pa- 
trons who  enabled  churches  to  obtain  from  artists 
the  wonderful  paintings  of  the  time.  The  sculp- 
tors made  for  them  many  charming  pieces  of 
bric-a-brac.  The  artists  laid  out  beg,utiful  gar- 
dens that  we  are  only  just  beginning  to  appre- 


FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE   205 

ciate  again  now  that  our  taste  for  outdoor  life 
is  being  properl}'^  cultivated.  They  bought  the 
books  that  were  issued  by  the  ]Manutiuses  at 
Venice.  Isabella  D'Este  had  a  standing  order 
that  all  the  books  issued  from  this  great  Venetian 
press  should  be  sent  to  her.  Books  were  costly 
treasures  in  these  times.  A  single  volume  of  one 
of  these  incunabula  of  printing  so  beautifully 
issued  from  Manutius's  printing  establishment 
was  worth  nearly  one  hundred  dollars  in  our 
money. 

The  women  designed  their  own  dresses.  They 
encouraged  the  miniature  painting  of  the  time  and 
the  illumination  of  books  and  occasionally  took 
up  these  arts  themselves.  They  fostered  the  de- 
velopment of  textile  industries,  lacemaking  and 
the  various  kinds  of  figured  cloth,  so  that  we  have 
some  of  the  most  beautiful  inventions  in  this  kind 
at  this  time.  Tapestry-making  took  on  a  new 
vigor  and  beauty  because  of  their  patronage. 
They  wanted  beautiful  glass,  and  new  periods  of 
marvellous  development  of  glass-tinting  and  mak- 
ing were  ushered  in.  As  can  be  readilj^  under- 
stood these  are  the  sort  of  things  that  men  are 
not  interested  in,  and  whenever  in  the  history  of 
the  race  we  find  a  period  of  development  of  this 
kind  we  can  be  sure  that  educated  women  are 
responsible  for  it.  These  women  of  the  Renais- 
sance decorated  their  homes  beautifully,  had  them 
built  substantially,  with  wonderful  taste  and, 
above  all,  had  them  set  charmingly  in  the  Italian 


206   FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE 

Renaissance  gardens  that  are  so  deservedly  ad- 
mired. 

While  they  were  thus  occupied  with  the  beauti- 
ful things  of  life  some  of  them  wrote  poetry  that 
has  lived  (Lucrezia  Tornabuoni  dei  Medici,  Vit- 
toria  Colonna),  some  of  them  indulged  in  fiction 
(Marguerite  of  Navarre)  that  is  still  read,  and  a 
great  epoch  of  fiction-writing  responded  to  their 
interest  as  readers;  some  of  them  mixed  in  poli- 
tics and  proved  their  power,  at  times  some  of 
them  acted  as  regents  for  their  sons  (Forli, 
D'Este),  and  succeeded  magnificently,  so  that  we 
have  every  phase  of  development  of  woman's 
power.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  at  this  period 
woman  was  afforded  every  opportunity  for  the 
development  of  her  intellectual  life,  and  that  she 
took  her  opportunities  with  great  success. 

We  have  from  this  time  probably  the  names  of 
more  distinguished  women  than  from  any  other 
corresponding  period  in  the  world's  history. 
There  was  a  wonderful  group  of  women  at  the 
Court  of  Giovanna  of  Naples  in  the  first  half  of 
the  fifteenth  century,  because  Naples  got  her 
Renaissance  impulses  first,  being  closer  by  sea 
to  Constantinople  and  having  many  Greek  tradi- 
tions from  the  old  days  when  Southern  Italy  was 
Magna  Grsecia.  Then  there  are  a  series  of  finely 
educated  women  connected  with  the  Medici  house- 
hold at  Florence.  The  mother  of  the  great  Lo- 
renzo is  the  best  known  of  them,  and  her  poems 
show  real  literary  power.     The  D'Este  family  is 


FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE   207 

better  known  generally,  and  then  there  were  the 
Gonzagas,  some  of  the  women  of  the  house  of 
Forli,  Vittoria  Colonna,  whose  influence  over 
art  and  artists  shows  her  genius  quite  as  well  as 
does  her  writing,  and  many  others.  Everywhere 
women  are  on  a  footing  with  men  as  regards  the 
intellectual  life.  Everywhere  they  direct  conver- 
sations seriously  with  regard  to  literary  and  artis- 
tic subjects,  and,  indeed,  it  is  they  who,  in  what 
we  would  now  call  salons,  serve  to  make  intel- 
lectual subjects  fashionable,  and  so  concentrate 
attention  on  them  and  secure  the  patronage  so 
necessary  for  artists  and  writers  if  they  are  to 
subsist  while  doing  their  work. 

It  would  be  a  great  mistake,  however,  to  think 
for  a  moment  that  it  was  in  Italy  alone  that  such 
opportunities  for  higher  education  and  intellec- 
tual influence  were  allowed  to  women.  Just  as  the 
Renaissance  movement  itself  spread  throughout 
Europe  affecting  the  education,  the  literature,  the 
art,  the  architecture,  the  arts  and  crafts  of  the 
time  and  the  nations,  so  did  the  feministic  move- 
ment spread,  and  everywhere  we  find  striking 
expressions  of  it.  In  France,  for  instance,  the 
Renaissance  can  be  traced  very  easih"  in  letters 
and  architecture,  and  was  not  much  behind  Italy 
in  feminine  education.  Queen  Anne  of  Bretagne 
organized  the  Court  School  of  the  time,  and  in- 
terest in  literature  became  the  fashion  of  the  hour. 
Marguerite  of  Xavarre  is  a  woman  of  the  Renais- 
sance, and  so  is  Renee  of  Anjou,  while  the  name 


208   FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE 

of  Louise  La  Cordiere  shows,  for  la  cordiere 
means  the  cord-wainer's  daughter,  that  higher 
education  for  women  was  not  confined  to  the 
nobility.  Mary  Queen  of  Scots,  educated  in 
France,  whose  letters  and  whose  poetry  with  oc- 
casional excursions  into  Latin,  show  us  how  thor- 
oughly educated  she  was, — it  must  not  be  for- 
gotten that  she  was  put  into  prison  at  twenty-four 
and  never  again  got  out, — is  a  typical  woman  of 
the  French  Renaissance.  Sichel  has  told  the  story 
of  these  women  of  France  very  well,  and  those 
who  want  to  know  the  details  of  the  feministic 
movement  of  the  time  should  turn  to  him. 

In  Spain,  too,  the  Renaissance  movement  made 
itself  felt  in  every  department.  Most  of  Spain's 
cathedrals  w^ere  finished  during  the  Renaissance 
time,  and  some  of  the  work  is  the  admiration  of 
the  world.  Spain's  literary  Renaissance  came  a 
little  later,  but  when  it  did  it  contributed  at  least 
two  great  names  to  the  world  literature — Cer- 
vantes and  Calderon.  The  women  of  the  nation 
were  also  affected,  and  Queen  Isabella  was  a 
deeply  intellectual  woman  of  many  interests. 
Spain  contributed  to  the  feministic  movement 
probably  the  greatest  name  in  the  history  of 
feminine  intellectuality  in  St.  Teresa.  How  much 
of  sympathy  there  was  with  this  great  expression 
of  feminine  intelligence  will  be  best  appreciated 
from  the  fact  that  Spanish  ecclesiastics  talk  of 
Teresa  as  their  Spanish  Doctor  of  the  Church, 
and  that  in  Rome  there  is  amongst  the  statues 


FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE    209 

of  the  Doctors  and  the  Fathers  in  the  Church  one 
woman  figure,  that  of  St.  Teresa,  with  the  title 
mater  spirituallum — mother  of  spiritual  things. 
Her  books,  profoundly  admired  by  the  Spaniards, 
were  the  favorite  reading  for  such  extremely  dif- 
ferent minds  as  Fenelon  and  Bossuet,  and  have 
been  the  storehouse  ever  since  for  German  mys- 
tics. They  were  beautifully  translated  by  Cra- 
shaw  into  English,  and  have  been  the  subject  of 
great  interest  during  the  present  feministic  move- 
ment, especially  since  George  Eliot's  reference  to 
her  in  the  preface  of  "  Middlemarch." 

In  England  the  Renaissance  did  not  affect  art 
much,  nor  architecture,  though  it  did  profoundly 
stir  the  men  of  letters,  and  the  great  Elizabethan 
period  of  English  literature  is  really  an  expres- 
sion of  the  Renaissance  in  England.  Here  al- 
most more  than  anywhere  else  in  Europe  the 
women  shared  in  the  uplift  and  devotion  to  things 
intellectual  that  developed.  Queen  Mary  was  a 
well-educated  woman.  Queen  Elizabeth  read 
Greek  as  well  as  Latin  easily,  Lady  Jane  Grey 
preferred  her  lessons  in  Greek,  under  Roger 
Ascham,  to  going  to  balls  and  routs  and  hunting 
parties,  and  was  a  blue-stocking  in  the  veriest 
sense  of  the  term.  It  has  been  hinted  that  it 
was  perhaps  this  that  disturbed  her  feminine  com- 
mon sense  and  allowed  her  to  be  led  so  easily 
into  the  foolish  conspiracy  in  which  she  lost  her 
life.  The  losing  of  one's  head  in  things  deeply 
intellectual  may  sometimes  mean  the  losing  of  it 


210    FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE 

more  literally  when  crowns  are  at  stake.  There 
are  many  other  names  of  noble  women  of  this 
time  that  might  be  mentioned  and  that  are  well 
known  for  their  intellectual  development.  That 
the  movement  did  not  confine  itself  to  the  higher 
nobility  we  can  be  sure,  for  when  the  better 
classes  do  ill  they  are  imitated,  but  so  also  are 
they  imitated  when  they  do  well.  Besides,  the 
story  that  we  have  of  Margaret  INIore  and  her 
friends  shows  that  the  middle  classes  were  also 
stirred  to  interest  in  things  intellectual. 

The  usual  objection,  when  this  story  of  the 
Renaissance  and  the  feministic  movement  con- 
nected with  it  is  told,  if  the  narrator  would  urge 
that  here  was  an  earlier  period  of  feminine  edu- 
cation than  ours,  is  that,  after  all,  the  education  of 
this  period  was  confined  to  only  a  few  of  the 
nobility.  This  is  not  true,  and  there  are  many 
reasons  why  it  is  not  true.  First,  the  upper 
classes  are  always  imitated  by  the  others,  and 
if  there  was  a  fashion  for  education  we  can  be 
sure  that  it  spread.  We  have  not  the  records  of 
many  educated  women,  but  those  that  we  have 
all  make  it  clear  that  education  was  not  confined 
to  a  few,  and  that  those  of  the  middle  classes  who 
wanted  it  could  readily  secure  it.  There  were 
probably  as  many  women  to  the  population  of 
Europe  at  that  time  enjoying  the  higher  educa- 
tion as  there  are  proportionately  in  America  at 
the  present  time.  Europe  had  but  a  small  popu- 
lation altogether  in  the  fifteenth  century.     There 


FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE    211 

were  probably  less  than  4,000,000  of  people  in 
England  at  tlie  end,  even,  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury. In  Elizabeth's  time  when  the  census  was 
taken,  because  of  the  Spanish  Armada,  these  were 
the  figures.  There  were  not  many  more  people  in 
all  Europe  then  than  there  are  now  in  England. 
If  out  of  these  few,  comparatively,  we  can  pick 
out  the  group  of  distinguished  women  whom  I 
have  just  spoken  of,  then  there  must  have  been 
a  great  many  sharing  in  the  privileges  of  the 
higher  education.* 

It  is  true  that  it  was,  as  a  rule,  only  the 
daughters  of  the  nobility  who  received  the  oppor- 
tunity for  the  higher  education,  or  at  least  ob- 
tained it  with  facilit}\  It  must  not  be  forgotten, 
however,   just   what   the   nobility   of   Italy,   and. 


*  What  an  interesting  reflection  on  the  notion  of  supposed  progress 
is  the  fact  pointed  out  bj^  Ambassador  Bryce  in  his  address  on 
Progress  (^f/rtn fjV,  July,  1907),  that  while  out  of  40,000,000  of  people 
there  were  so  many  genius  men  and  women  accomplishing  work  that 
the  world  will  never  willingly  let  die,  we  with  a  population  ten  times 
as  great  cannot  show  anything  like  as  many.  Most  of  the  great 
names  that  are  most  familiar  to  the  modern  mind  come  in  a  single 
century, — the  sixteenth.  At  the  present  time  the  western  civilization 
then  represented  by  40,000,000  has  near  to  500,000,000  of  people.'  We 
make  no  pretension  at  all,  however,  to  the  claim  that  we  have  more 
great  men  than  they  had.  We  should  have  ten  times  as  many,  but  on 
the  contrary'  we  are  quite  willing  to  concede  that  we  have  very  few 
compared  to  their  number  and  almost  none,  if  indeed  there  are  any, 
who  measure  up  to  the  high  standards  of  achievement  of  that  time 
more  than  four  centuries  ago.  It  is  thoughts  of  this  kind  that  show 
one  how  much  we  must  correct  the  ordinarily  accepted  notions  with 
regard  to  progress  and  inevitable  development,  and  each  generation 
improving  on  its  predecessors  and  the  like,  that  are  so  commonly  dif- 
fused but  that  represent  no  reality  in  history  at  all. 


212   FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE 

indeed,  of  other  countries  also,  represented.  The 
conditions  there  are  most  typicj^l  and  it  is 
worth  while  studying  them  out.  The  Medici,  for 
instance,  of  Florence,  whose  women  folk  were  so 
well  educated,  were  members  of  the  gilds  of  the 
apothecaries,  as  their  name  indicates,  who  made 
a  fortune  on  drugs  and  precious  stones  and  beau- 
tiful stuffs  from  the  East,  and  then  became  the 
bankers  of  Europe.  Noblemen  were  created  be- 
cause of  success  in  war,  success  in  politics,  suc- 
cess in  diplomacy,  but  also  because  of  success  in 
commerce,  and  occasionally  success  in  the  arts. 
Not  many  educators  and  artists  were  among 
them  any  more  than  in  our  time,  because  they 
were  not,  as  a  rule,  possessed  of  the  fortune 
properly  to  keep  up  the  dignity  of  a  patent  of 
nobility.  The  daughters  of  the  nobility  of  Italy, 
however,  were  not  very  different,  certainly  their 
origin  was  very  similar  to  that  of  the  daughters 
of  the  wealthy  men  of  America,  who  are,  after  all, 
the  only  ones  who  can  take  advantage  of  the 
higher  education  in  our  time.  We  must  not  for- 
get that,  compared  to  the  whole  population,  the 
number  of  women  securing  the  higher  education 
is  very  limited. 

To  think  that  the  Renaissance  with  this  pro- 
vision of  ample  opportunities  for  feminine  educa- 
tion was  the  first  epoch  of  this  kind  in  the  world's 
history  would  be  to  miss  sadly  a  host  of  historical 
facts  and  their  significance.  Unfortunately  his- 
tory has  been  so  written  from  the  standpoint  of 


FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE   213 

man  and  his  interests,  that  this  phase  of  liistory 
is  not  well  known  and  probably  less  understood. 
History  has  been  too  much  a  mere  accumulation 
of  facts  with  regard  to  war,  diplomacy  and 
politics.  While  we  have  known  much  of  heroes 
and  battles,  we  have  known  little  of  education,  of 
art,  of  artistic  achievement  of  all  kinds.  We 
have  known  even  less  of  popular  movements. 
We  have  known  almost  nothing  of  the  great  up- 
lift of  the  masses  which  created  the  magnificent 
arts  and  crafts  of  the  Middle  Ages,  that  we  are 
just  beginning  to  admire  so  much  once  more,  and 
our  admiration  of  them  is  the  best  measure  of 
our  own  serious  artistic  development.  Kings 
and  warriors  and  kings'  mistresses  and  ugly 
diplomacy  and  rotten  politics,  have  occupied  the 
centre  of  the  stage  in  history.  Surely  we  are 
coming  to  a  time  when  other  matters,  the  human 
things  and  not  the  animal  instincts,  will  be  the 
main  subject  of  history;  when  fighting  and  sex 
and  acquisitiveness  and  selfishness  shall  give  place 
in  history  to  mutual  aid,  uplift,  unselfishness  and 
thoughtfulness  for  others. 

As  soon  as  history  is  studied  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  larger  human  interests  and  not  that 
of  political  history,  it  is  easy  to  find  not  only 
traces  but  detailed  stories  of  feminine  education 
at  many  times.  Before  the  Renaissance  the  great 
phase  of  education  had  been  that  of  the  univer- 
sities. The  first  of  the  universities  was  founded 
down   at   Salerno   around   a   medical   school,   the 


214   FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE 

second  that  of  Bologna  around  a  law  school  and 
the  third  that  of  Paris  with  a  school  of  philosophy 
and  theology  as  a  nucleus.  This  seems  to  be 
about  the  way  that  man's  interests  manifest  them- 
selves in  an  era  of  development.  First,  he  is 
occupied  mainly  with  his  body  and  its  needs; 
then  his  property  and  its  rights,  and  finally,  as 
he  lifts  himself  up  to  higher  things,  his  relations 
to  his  fellow-man  and  to  his  Creator  come  to 
be  profound  vital  interests.  Such,  at  least,  is  the 
story  of  the  origin  of  the  universities  in  the 
thirteenth   century. 

The  surprise  for  us  who  are  considering  the 
story  of  feminine  education  and  influence  is 
what  happened  at  Salerno.  Here  some  twenty 
miles  back  from  Naples,  in  a  salubrious  climate, 
not  far  from  the  Mediterranean,  where  old  Greek 
traditions  had  maintained  themselves,  for  South- 
ern Italy  was  called  Magna  Grsecia,  where  the 
intercourse  with  the  Arabs  and  with  the  northern 
shores  of  Africa  and  with  the  Near  East,  brought 
the  medical  secrets  of  many  climes  to  a  focus,  the 
first  modern  medical  school  came  into  existence. 
In  the  department  of  women's  diseases  women 
professors  taught,  wrote  text-books  and  evidentlj^ 
were  considered,  in  every  sense  of  the  word,  co- 
ordinate professors  in  the  universitJ^  We  have 
the  text-book  of  one  of  them,  Trotula,  who  is 
hailed  as  the  founder  of  the  Salernitan  School  of 
Women  Physicians,  the  word  school  being  used 
in  the  same  sense  as  when  we  talk  of  a  school  of 


FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE    215 

painting,  and  not  at  all  in  the  sense  of  our  mod- 
ern women's  medical  schools.  Trotula  was  the 
wife  of  the  professor  of  medicine  at  the  univer- 
sity, Plat^erius  I,  and  the  mother  of  another  pro- 
fessor at  the  university,  Platasrius  II,  herself  a 
professor  like  them. 

There  are  many  other  names  of  women  pro- 
fessors at  the  University  of  Salerno  in  this  de- 
partment. Women,  however,  were  not  alone  al- 
lowed to  practise  this  single  phase  of  medicine, 
but  we  have  licenses  granted  to  women  in  Naples, 
of  which  at  this  time  Salerno  was  the  univer- 
sity, to  practise  both  medicine  and  surgery.  It 
seems  to  have  been  quite  common,  I  should  say, 
at  least  as  common  as  in  our  own  time  for  women 
to  study  and  practise  medicine,  and  their  place  in 
the  university  and  the  estimation  in  which  their 
books  were  held,  show  us  that  all  the  difficulties 
in  the  way  of  professional  education  for  women 
had  been  removed  and  that  they  were  accepted 
by  their  masculine  colleagues  on  a  footing  of  ab- 
solute equality. 

Probably  the  most  interesting  feature  of  this 
surprising  and  unexpected  development  of  pro- 
fessional education  for  women  is  to  be  found  in  the 
conditions  out  of  which  Salerno  developed.  The 
school  was  originally  a  monastic  school  under  the 
influence  of  the  Benedictine  monks  from  Monte 
Cassino  not  far  away.  The  great  Archbishop 
Alphanus  I,  who  was  the  most  prominent  patron 
and  who  had  been  a  professor  there,  was  himself 


216   FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE 

a  Benedictine  monk.  How  intimately  the  rela- 
tions of  the  monks  to  the  school  were  maintained 
can  be  realized  from  the  fact  that  when  the  great- 
est medical  teacher  and  writer  of  Salerno,  Con- 
stantine  Africanus,  wanted  to  have  leisure  to 
write  his  great  works  in  medicine,  he  retired  from 
his  professorship  to  the  monastery  of  Monte 
Cassino.  His  great  friend  Desiderius  was  the 
abbot  there,  and  his  influence  was  still  very  strong 
at  Salerno.  Desiderius  afterwards  became  Pope, 
and  continued  his  beneficent  patronage  of  this 
Southern  Italian  university.  In  a  word,  it  was  in 
the  midst  of  the  most  intimate  ecclesiastical  and 
monastic  influence  that  this  handing  over  of  the 
department  of  women's  diseases  to  women  in  a 
great  teaching  institution  occurred.  The  wise  old 
monks  were  thoroughly  practical,  and  though 
eminently  conservative,  knew  the  needs  of  man- 
kind very  well,  and  worked  out  this  solution  of 
one  series  of  problems. 

When  the  next  great  university,  that  of  Bo- 
logna, was  founded,  it  developed,  as  I  have  sug- 
gested, around  a  law  school.  Irnerius  revived 
the  study  of  the  old  Roman  law,  and  his  teaching 
of  it  attracted  so  much  attention  that  students 
from  all  over  Europe  flocked  to  Bologna.  Law 
is  different  from  medicine  in  many  respects.  The 
right  of  women  to  study  medicine  will  readily  be 
granted,  their  place  in  a  system  of  medical  edu- 
cation is  manifest.  With  regard  to  law,  however, 
there  can  scarcely  be  grave   question  as  to  the 


FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE   217 

ad\asability  of  woman  studying  it  unless  economic 
conditions  force  her  to  it.  This  was  particularly 
true  at  a  time  when  woman  could  own  no  prop- 
erty and  had  no  rights  until  she  married.  In 
spite  of  the  many  inherent  improbabilities  of  this 
development,  the  law  school  was  scarcely  opened 
at  Bologna  before  women  became  students  in  it. 
Probably  Irnerius'  daughter  and  some  of  her 
friends  were  the  first  students,  but  after  a  time 
others  came  and  the  facilities  seem  to  have  been 
quite  open  to  them.  As  out  of  the  law  school  the 
university  gradually  developed,  opportunities  for 
study  in  the  other  higher  branches  were  accorded 
to  women  at  Bologna.  We  have  the  story  of 
their  success  in  mathematics,  in  philosophy,  in 
music  and  in  astronomj^ 

According  to  a  well-known  and  apparently 
well  authenticated  tradition,  one  distinguished 
woman  student  of  Bologna,  Maria  Di  Novella, 
achieved  such  success  in  mathematics  about  the 
middle  of  the  thirteenth  century  that  she  was 
appointed  professor  of  mathematics.  Apparently 
the  faculty  of  Bologna  had  no  qualms  of  educa- 
tional conscience  nor  betook  themselves  to  such 
halfway  measures  as  one  of  our  modern  facul- 
ties, which  accords  a  certificate  to  a  woman  that 
she  has  passed  better  in  the  mathematical  tripos 
than  the  Senior  Wrangler,  though  they  do  not 
accord  her  the  Senior  Wranglership.  The  story 
goes  on  to  say  that  Signorina  Di  Novella,  know- 
ing that   she   was   pretty,   and   fearing  that   her 


218   FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE 

beauty  would  disturb  the  minds,  at  least,  of  her 
male  students,  arranged  to  lecture  from  behind 
a  curtain.  This  would  seem  to  indicate  that  the 
blue-stockings  of  the  olden  time  could  be  as  sur- 
passingly modest  as  they  were  intelligent.  I  re- 
member once  telling  this  story  before  a  convent 
audience.  The  dear  old  Mother  Superior,  who 
had  known  me  for  many  years,  ventured  to  ask 
me  afterwards,  "  Did  you  say  that  she  was 
young?"  and  I  said  yes,  according  to  the  tradi- 
tion; "and  handsome?"  and  I  nodded  the  af- 
firmative, "  Well,  then,"  she  said,  "  I  do  not  be- 
lieve the  rest  of  the  story."  But  then,  after  all, 
what  do  dear  old  Mothers  Superior  know  about 
the  world  or  its  ways,  or  about  handsome  young 
women  or  their  ways,  or  about  the  significance  of 
traditions  which  serve  to  show  us  that  even  pretty, 
intelligent  women  can  be  as  modestly  retiring  and 
as  ready  to  conceal  their  charms  as  they  are  to 
be  charmingly  courteous  and  careful  of  the  feel- 
ings of  others? 

It  was  not  alone  in  law  and  mathematics,  how- 
ever, that  women  were  given  opportunities  for  the 
higher  education  and  even  for  professional  work 
at  the  University  of  Bologna.  In  medicine,  as 
well  as  in  law,  women  reached  distinction.  The 
first  great  professor  of  anatomy  of  modern  times 
is  Mondino,  whose  text-book  on  dissection,  pub- 
lished at  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth  century, 
continued  to  be  used  in  the  medical  schools  for 
two  centuries.     One  of  his  assistants  was  Ales- 


FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE   219 

Sandra  Giliani,  one  of  the  two  university  pro- 
sectors in  anatomy.  At  the  Surgeon  General's 
Library  in  Washington,  in  one  of  the  early 
printed  editions  of  JVIondino's  work,  the  frontis- 
piece shows  a  J^oung  woman  making  the  dissec- 
tion before  him  preparatory  to  his  lecture.  To 
her,  according  to  an  old  Italian  chronicle,  we  owe 
the  invention  of  methods  of  varnishing  and  paint- 
ing the  tissues  of  cadavers  so  that  they  would 
resemble  more  their  appearance  in  the  living  state, 
that  they  might  be  preserved  for  further  use,  thus 
avoiding  to  some  extent  the  necessity  for  constant 
repetition  of  the  deterrent  work  of  dissection, 
even  more  deterrent  at  that  time. 

It  is  curiously  interesting  to  find  that  another 
great  improvement  in  the  teaching  of  anatomy, 
invented  in  Italy  nearly  four  centuries  later,  came 
also  from  a  woman  teaching  at  an  Italian  uni- 
versity, Madame  INIanzolini.  The  tradition  con- 
necting these  two  women  is  unbroken.  There  is 
not  a  century  from  the  thirteenth  to  the  eight- 
eenth in  which  there  were  not  distinguished 
women  professors  at  the  universities  of  Italy,  and, 
therefore,  also  students  in  large  numbers. 

Just  how  many  women  students  there  were  we 
do  not  know.  It  might  seem  to  be  a  compara- 
tively easy  problem  to  find  out  just  how  many 
there  were  at  any  given  time  by  looking  up  the 
registers  of  the  universities.  Once  in  Bologna 
itself  I  got  hcJld  of  the  old  university  registers, 
confident  that  now  I  would  learn  just  what  was 


220   FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE 

the  proportion  of  women  students  at  the  univer- 
sity. I  was  utterly  disappointed,  however.  Ital- 
ian mothers  had,  so  far  as  the  settlement  of  this 
question  is  concerned,  the  unfortunate  habit  occa- 
sionally of  giving  boys'  names  to  girls,  and  girls' 
names  to  boys.  They  called  their  children  after 
favorite  saints.  A  girl  might  well  be  called  An- 
tonio, for  the  feminine  form  was  not  in  common 
use  in  earlier  times.  Many  boys  had  for  first 
name  Maria.  It  used  to  be  the  custom  in  Venice 
for  every  child,  no  matter  what  its  sex,  to  receive 
from  the  Church  the  two  names  Maria  Giovanni, 
and  then  the  parents  might  add  what  other  names 
they  pleased.  The  names  of  royalty,  with  their 
frequent  use  of  mingled  masculine  and  feminine 
names,  show  how  much  confusion  can  be  worked 
to  any  scheme  for  the  determination  of  the  sex 
of  students  at  the  old  universities  by  this,  for 
us,  unfortunate  habit. 

Curiously  enough,  it  was  during  the  thirteenth 
century  when  the  development  of  feminine  educa- 
tion in  the  early  university  period  was  at  its 
height,  that  certain  changes  in  the  domestic  econ- 
omy of  the  Bolognese  are  worthy  of  notice.  Two 
kinds  of  prepared  food  became  popular,  if  they 
were  not,  indeed,  both  invented  at  this  time.  One 
of  them,  bearing  the  classic  name  Bologna,  is  still 
with  us,  has  spread  throughout  the  world,  and  is 
likely  to  continue  to  be  an  important  article  of 
food  for  many  centuries  more.  Another  form  of 
prepared  food  was  a  sort  of  dessert  called  Bologna 


FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE    221 

pudding,  prepared  from  cereals,  and  which  can 
still  be  purchased  in  Bologna,  though  foreigners, 
as  a  rule,  do  not  care  much  for  it.  These  two 
articles  of  food  modified  materially  the  prepara- 
tion of  food  for  meals  at  this  time.  It  was  pos- 
sible to  buy  both  of  these,  as  now,  leady  made, 
and  so  the  housewife  was  spared  the  bother  and 
trouble  and  expenditure  of  time  required  for 
this  work.  We  have  here  one  phase  of  the  origin 
of  the  delicatessen  stores.  This  sort  of  change 
in  domestic  economy  has  always  been  noted  when- 
ever women  have  gone  out  of  the  home  for  other 
occupations  and  have  become  something  less — or 
more — than  the  housewives  and  mothers  they  were 
before.  Such  changes  in  the  dietary,  however, 
in  the  direction  of  ready-made  food  are  never 
popular  with  men.  One  German  historical  writer 
has  been  unkind  enough  to  say  that  this  is  one 
of  the  reasons  why  the  higher  education  gradu- 
ally became  much  less  popular,  or  at  least  at- 
tracted less  attention  than  before.  "  Women 
want  things  for  themselves,  and  if  they  are  op- 
posed insist  on  getting  them,"  is  the  way  this 
cynic  Teuton  puts  it.  "  If,  after  a  time,  how- 
ever, having  got  what  they  want,  they  find  that 
the  men  do  not  like  them  to  have  it,  they  gradu- 
ally abandon  it."  According  to  him  Bologna  and 
Bologna  pudding  saved  the  stooping  over  the 
kitchen  range,  or  whatever  took  its  place  in  those 
days,  and  gave  all  classes  of  women  more  oppor- 
tunity  for   intellectual   development   or   at   least 


222   FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE 

for  occupation  with  things  different  from  house- 
hold duties,  but  after  a  time  the  more  or  less 
resentful  attitude  of  the  men  brought  about  a 
change.     However  that  may  be  is  hard  to  say. 

Another  interesting  feature  of  the  history  of 
these  times  connected  in  some  way  with  feminine 
education  or,  at  least,  with  feminine  occupa- 
tion with  other  things  besides  their  households, 
was  a  great  devotion  to  a  particular  breed  of 
pet  dogs  of  which  one  hears  much  in  the  accounts 
of  the  life  at  Bologna  at  this  time.  Here,  once 
more,  the  German  cynic  has  had  his  say.  He  has 
suggested  that,  whenever  women  became  occupied 
with  things  outside  their  home,  with  a  consequent 
diminution  in  the  number  of  children,  they  are 
almost  sure  to  find  an  outlet  for  their  affections 
in  devotion  to  dogs  and  other  pets.  Apparently 
he  would  suggest  that  they  literally  go  to  the 
dogs.  It  is  very  curious  that  just  during  this 
thirteenth  century,  when  feminine  education  at 
Bologna  is  at  its  height,  one  hears  so  much  of 
these  pets.  At  other  times  in  the  world's  history, 
when  women  have  taken  to  intellectual  interests 
and  especially  when  there  has  been  a  fall  in  the 
birth-rate,  this  same  attention  to  pet  animals  is 
worthy  of  study. 

After  the  thirteenth  century  there  seems  to 
have  been  a  reaction  against  these  pets.  It  is 
to  be  hoped  that  there  is  no  connection  between 
this  and  the  prepared  foods  spoken  of,  but  the 
decline  in  the  popularity  of  pets  and  of  woman's 


FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE   223 

occupation  with  intellectual  interests  went  hand 
in  hand.  For  all  of  this  I  am  indebted  to  Ger- 
man authorities  whose  attitude  towards  feminine 
education  may  somewhat  prejudice  them  and,  in- 
deed, probably  does  so,  but  these  things  are  only 
mentioned  as  showing  certain  views  that  are 
held.  The  interesting  thing  for  us  is  that  after 
a  period  of  somewhat  more  than  a  century  of 
rather  intense  interest  on  the  part  of  the  women 
in  nearly  every  phase  of  the  intellectual  life,  there 
is  then  a  diminution  of  interest,  so  that  by  the 
end  of  the  fourteenth  century  women,  even  where 
feminine  intellectual  life  was  vigorous,  are  occu- 
pied almost  without  exception  as  they  w^ere  before 
the  university  period,  mainty  with  domestic  con- 
cerns. 

While  feminine  education  was  so  common  in 
the  ecclesiastically  ruled  universities  of  Italy,  the 
custom  did  not  spread  in  Western  Europe.  The 
reason  is  not  far  to  seek.  All  of  the  western  uni- 
versities owe  their  origins  to  Paris.  Oxford  was 
due  to  a  withdrawal  of  English  students  from 
Paris,  Cambridge  to  a  similar  withdrawal  from 
Oxford.  Many  of  the  Scotch  universities  are 
grandchildren  of  Paris.  All  of  the  French  uni- 
versities are  direct  descendants,  except  Mont- 
pellier.  The  Spanish  universities  have  a  similar 
relation.  The  experience  with  feminine  educa- 
tion at  Paris  had  been  unfortunate.  The  Heloise 
and  Abelard  incident  came  in  a  formative  stage 
of    the    university.      It    settled    unfavorably    the 


224    FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE 

whole  question  of  feminine  attendance  at  univer- 
sities for  the  west.  It.  seems  a  small  thing  to 
have  such  a  wide  and  far-reaching  influence,  but 
it  is  very  often  on  little  things  that  the  success  or 
failure  of  great  social  movements  of  any  kind 
depends.  We  have  practically  no  record  of  any 
relaxation  of  university  regulations  in  this  matter 
in  the  west.  Perhaps  the  Teutonic  character 
was  opposed  to  it,  perhaps  the  Teutonic  women 
were  less  anxious  for  it,  being  more  occupied 
with  Church  and  children  and  their  home,  but 
there  was  none,  and  its  absence  is  responsible 
for  the  feeling  so  common  among  us,  that  now 
for  the  first  time  in  the  world  women  are  enjoying 
the  opportunity  for  the  higher  education. 

Even  the  university  epoch,  however,  is  not  the 
first  phase  of  opportunities  for  the  education  of 
woman  in  modern  history.  Far  from  it,  indeed, 
we  can  find  much  more  than  traces  of  a  feminist 
movement  in  other  centuries  before  this,  and,  in- 
deed, in  many  of  them.  When  Charlemagne 
established  schools  for  his  people  and  invited 
Alcuin,  the  English  monk,  to  develop  educa- 
tional institutions  for  his  people,  the  first  and 
most  important  school  was  that  of  the  imperial 
palace  where  Alcuin  himself  taught.  In  this  the 
women  of  Paris  were  given  opportunities  quite  as 
well  as  the  men;  indeed,  they  seem  to  have  taken 
a  more  vivid  interest  and  their  example  seems 
io  have  been  the  highest  incentive  for  many  of  the 
men  to  take  up  a  work  so  foreign  to  their  natures. 


FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE   225 

for  as  yet  they  had  all  the  barbarous  instincts  of 
their  Gothic  ancestors,  only  slightly  tamed  and 
modified  by  two  or  three  centuries  of  gradual 
uplift  and  religious  training  of  character.  There 
are  letters  from  the  women  of  the  palace,  and 
especially  Charlemagne's  daughter,  to  Alcuin,  dis- 
cussing phases  of  his  teaching  and  suggesting 
problems  and  questions  with  regard  to  the  matters 
which  he  had  been  making  the  subject  of  his 
instruction. 

It  would  be  easy  to  think  that  this  incident  of  the 
Palace  School  did  not  mean  very  much  and  that 
its  passing  influence  did  not  make  itself  felt 
widely  nor  for  long.  The  state  of  education  at 
this  time  must  not  be  forgotten.  Only  the  clergy, 
as  a  rule,  had  leisure  for  it.  All  the  rest  of  the 
world  were  engaged  either  in  the  frequent  wars 
or  in  a  tireless  struggle  for  subsistence  as  farm- 
ers, merchants  and  craftsmen.  The  nobility  neg- 
lected education  just  as  much  as  the  upper  classes 
always  do,  though  there  were  certain  fashions 
which  gained  a  foothold  and  that  seem  to  show 
that  they  had  some  interest.  Many  a  nobleman 
of  the  mediseval  centuries,  however,  boasted  that 
he  could  not  sign  his  own  name.  He  was  rather 
proud  of  the  fact  that  he  had  not  lowered  him- 
self to  mere  book  knowledge.  There  were  large 
numbers  of  the  clergy  and  the  monks,  however, 
and  these  were  the  scholars  of  the  period. 

There  were  also  at  this  time  large  numbers 
of  religious  women,  and  these  in  their  leisure  hours 


226    FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE 

spent  much  time  at  educational  matters  and  some 
of  them  accomphshed  lasting  results.  The  mother 
of  the  family,  the  court  dame,  the  wife  of  the 
nobleman,  whose  castle  was  much  more  the  home 
of  work  than  it  has  ever  been  at  any  time  since, 
had  but  little  leisure  for  the  intellectual  life. 
The  nuns  devoted  themselves  to  beautiful  handi- 
work, to  the  composition  as  well  as  the  transcrip- 
tion of  books  and  to  the  cultural  interests  gen- 
erally. 

It  has  always  been  true,  as  a  rule,  that  the 
woman  who  accomplished  anything  in  the  intel- 
lectual life  must  be  either  a  celibate,  or  at  most, 
the  mother  of  but  a  child  or  two.  The  mother  of 
a  large  family,  unless  she  is  extremely  excep- 
tional, cannot  be  expected  to  be  productive  in 
the  intellectual  life.  She  has  not  the  time  for 
original  work,  and  still  less  for  the  filing  process 
necessary  for  appropriate  expression.  There  are 
rare  exceptions,  but  they  only  prove  the  rule. 
One  of  the  two  forms  of  production  apparently 
women  must  give  up  to  devote  themselves  to 
the  other.  The  nuns  in  the  Middle  Ages,  in  the 
retirement  of  their  convents,  gave  themselves 
much  more  than  we  are  likely  to  think  possible, 
to  literary  and  scientific  production.  Within  the 
past  year  I  have  published  sketches  of  two  dis- 
tinguished women  of  the  tenth  and  twelfth  cen- 
turies whose  books  show  us  the  intellectual  inter- 
ests of  the  women  of  this  time.  Only  that  women 
were  having  opportunities  for  mental  development 


FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE    227 

these  would  not  have  been  written,  and  as  they 
were  written  for  women,  it  is  evident  that  those  in- 
terests Avere  quite  widely  diffused.  One  of  these 
two  authors  comes  in  what  is  sometimes  called  the 
darkest  of  the  Dark  Ages,  the  tenth  century;  the 
other  was  born  in  the  eleventh.  They  serve  to  show 
how  much  more  intense  than  we  are  likely  to  think 
was  the  interest  of  the  time  in  things  intellectual. 
Without  printing  and  without  any  proper  means 
of  publication,  somehow  these  women  succeeded  in 
making  literary  monuments  that  have  outlasted 
the  wreck  and  ruin  of  time,  and  that  have  been 
of  sufficient  interest  to  mankind  to  be  preserved 
among  ^vicissitudes  which  seemed  surely  destined 
to  destroy  them. 

One  of  the  two  ladies  was  Roswitha,  or  Hrots- 
witha,  a  nun  of  Gandersheim,  in  what  is  now 
Hanover,  who  in  the  tenth  century  wrote  a  series 
of  comedies  in  imitation  of  Terence,  probably 
not  meant  to  be  played  but  to  be  read.  She 
says  in  the  preface  that  the  reason  for  writing 
them  was  that  so  many  religious  were  reading 
the  indecent  literature  of  classical  Rome,  with  the 
excuse  that  it  was  necessary  for  the  cultivation  of 
style  or  for  the  completion  of  their  education, 
that  she  wanted  and  had  striven  to  write  some- 
thing moral  and  Christian  to  replace  the  older 
writings.  That  preface  of  itself  ought  to  be 
enough  to  show  us  that  in  the  nunneries  along 
the  Rhine,  of  which  we  know  that  there  were 
many,  there  must  have  been  a  much  more  wide- 


228   FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE 

spread  and  ardent  interest  in  literature,  and,  above 
all,  in  classic  literature,  than  we  have  had  any  idea 
of  until  recently.  Hrotswitha,  to  give  her  her 
Saxon  name,  was  only  a  young  woman  of  twenty- 
five  when  she  wrote  the  series  of  stories  and  plays 
thus  prefaced,  and  while  her  style,  of  course,  does 
not  compare  with  the  classics,  worse  Latin  has 
often  been  written  by  people  who  were  sure  that 
they  knew  more  about  Latinity  than  any  nun  of 
the  obscure  tenth  century  could  possibly  have 
known. 

The  other  woman  writer  of  about  this  time  was 
Hildegarde,  the  abbess  of  a  monastery  along  the 
Rhine,  born  at  the  end  of  the  eleventh  century, 
who  wrote  a  text-book  of  medicine,  which  was  the. 
most  important  document  in  the  history  of  medi- 
cine in  this  century.  The  nuns  were  the  nurses 
and  the  hospital  attendants  and  in  the  country 
places,  to  a  great  extent,  the  physicians  of  this 
time.  In  the  cities  there  were  regular  practition- 
ers of  medicine,  but  the  infirmarian  of  a  monas- 
tery cared  for  the  ailing  monks  and  the  people  on 
the  monastery  estates  when  ill,  and  often  they 
were  many  in  number,  and  the  infirmarian  of  a 
convent  did  the  same  thing  for  the  sisters  and  for 
at  least  the  women  folk  among  the  people  of  the 
neighborhood.  It  was  in  order  to  gather  together 
and  preserve  the  medical  traditions  of  the  mon- 
asteries and  convents  that  Hildegarde,  who  after- 
wards came  to  be  known  as  St.  Hildegarde,  wrote 
her  volume   on  medicine.      It  has   been   recently 


FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE   229 

issued  in  the  collection  of  old  writings  called 
"Migne's  Patrologia,"  and  has  drawn  many 
praises  from  historical  critics  for  the  amount  of 
information  which  it  contains.  These  two,  Hro- 
switha  and  Hildegarde,  furnish  abundant  evidence 
of  the  intellectual  life  of  the  convents  of  this 
old  time  and  more  than  hint  at  how  much  has 
been  lost  that  might  have  helped  us  to  a  larger 
knowledge  of  them. 

With  this  in  mind  it  will  be  easier  to  under- 
stand a  preceding  phase  of  the  history  of  femi- 
nine education  in  Europe.  The  first  nation  that 
was  converted  to  Christianity  in  a  body,  so  that 
Christian  ideas  and  ideals  had  a  chance  for  asser- 
tion and  application  in  the  life  of  the  people,  was 
Ireland.  Christianity  when  introduced  into  Rome 
met  with  the  determined  opposition  of  old  pagan- 
ism. After  the  migration  of  nations  and  the 
coming  down  of  the  barbarians  upon  the  Roman 
Empire,  there  was  little  opportunity  for  Chris- 
tianity to  assert  itself  until  after  these  Teutonic 
peoples  had  been  lifted  out  of  their  barbarism  to  a 
higher  plane  of  civilization.  In  Ireland,  however, 
not  only  did  conversion  to  Christianity  convert  the 
whole  people,  but  it  came  to  a  people  who  pos- 
sessed already  a  high  degree  of  civilization  and 
culture,  a  literature  that  we  have  been  learning 
to  think  more  and  more  of  in  recent  years,  many 
arts,  and  the  development  of  science,  in  the  form 
of  medicine  at  least,  to  a  high  degree.  The  law 
and  music,   the   language   and   the   literature   of 


230   FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE 

the  early  Irish  all  show  us  a  highly  cultivated 
people.  When  Christianity  came  to  them,  then, 
education  became  its  watchword.  Schools  were 
opened  everywhere  on  the  island.  Ireland  be- 
came The  Island  of  Saints  and  of  Scholars, 
and  literally  thousands  of  students  flocked  from 
England  and  the  mainland  to  these  Irish  schools. 
The  first  and  the  greatest  of  these  was  that 
founded  by  St.  Patrick  himself  at  Armagh.  Dur- 
ing the  century  after  his  death  there  were  prob- 
ably at  one  time  as  many  as  5,000  students  at 
Armagh.  Only  next  in  importance  to  this  great 
school  of  the  Irish  apostle  was  that  of  his  great 
feminine  co-worker,  St.  Brigid,  who  did  for  the 
women  of  Ireland  what  St.  Patrick  had  been 
doing  for  the  men.  It  is  probable  that  there  were 
3,000  students  at  Kildare,  Brigid's  great  school,  at 
one  time.  It  is  curious  to  think  that  there  should 
have  been  something  like  co-education  1,500  years 
ago,  and,  above  all,  in  Ireland,  but  Kildare  seems 
to  have  had  a  system  not  unlike  that  in  vogue 
at  many  of  our  universities  in  the  modern  time. 
The  male  and  female  students  were  thoroughly 
segregated, — may  I  say  this  is  not  the  last  time 
in  the  world's  history  that  segregation  was  the 
distinguishing  trait  of  co-education, — but  the  teach- 
ers of  the  men  at  Kildare  seem  also  to  have  lec- 
tured to  the  women.  The  men  occupied  an  en- 
tirely subsidiary  position,  however;  even  the 
bishops  of  Kildare  in  Brigid's  time  were  ap- 
pointed on  her  recommendation.     For  centuries 


FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE   231 

afterwards  the  Abbess  of  Kildare,  Brigid's  suc- 
cessor, had  the  privilege  of  a  commanding  voice 
in  the  selection  of  the  bishop.  The  school  at  Kil- 
dare was  conducted  mainly  by  and  for  women, 
though  there  were  men  in  the  neighboring  monas- 
tery who  taught  both  classes  of  pupils. 

Perhaps  the  most  interesting  feature  of  the  edu- 
cation of  Kildare  is  that  it  was  not  concerned 
exclusively,  nor  even  for  the  major  part  appar- 
ently, with  book-learning.  The  book-learning  of 
the  Irish  schools  was  celebrated.  Down  at  Kil- 
dare, however,  certain  of  the  arts  and  crafts  were 
cultivated  with  special  success.  Lace-making 
and  the  illumination  of  books  were  two  of  the 
favorite  occupations  of  these  students  at  Kildare 
in  which  marvellous  success  was  achieved.  The 
tradition  of  Irish  lace-making  which  has  main- 
tained itself  during  all  the  centuries  began,  or 
at  least,  secured  its  first  great  prestige,  in  Brigid's 
time.  Gerald  the  Welshman,  sometimes  spoken 
of  as  Giraldus  Cambrensis,  told  of  having  seen 
during  a  journey  in  Ireland  centuries  after 
Brigid's  time,  but  nearly  a  thousand  years  ago,  a 
copy  of  the  Scriptures  that  was  wonderfully 
illuminated.  He  thought  it  the  most  beautiful 
book  in  the  world.  His  description  talUes  very 
closely  with  that  of  the  Book  of  Kells.  Some 
have  even  ventured  to  suggest  that  he  actually 
saw  the  Book  of  Kells  at  Kildare.  This  is  ex- 
tremely improbable,  however,  and  the  Book  of 
Kells  almost  surely  originated  elsewhere.     There 


232    FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE 

seems,  however,  to  have  been  at  Kildare  some 
book  nearly  as  beautiful  as  the  Book  of  Kells, 
made  there,  and  establishing  peradventure  the 
thoroughness  of  the  artistic  education  given  at 
Kildare  at  this  time. 

So  much  for  feminine  influence  and  education 
under  Christianity.  Most  people  are  likely  to 
know  much  more  of  the  place  of  women  in  Greece 
and  Rome  than  during  Christian  times.  We 
are  prone,  however,  to  exaggerate  the  dependence 
of  woman  among  both  Latins  and  Greeks  and  to 
think  that  she  had  very  few  opportunities  for  in- 
tellectual development  and  almost  none  for  ex- 
pression of  her  personality  and  the  exertion  of 
her  influence.  Here,  once  more,  as  in  many  other 
phases  of  this  subject  we  are,  through  ignorance, 
assuming  conditions  in  the  past  that  are  quite 
unlike  those  which  actually  existed.  Recently  in 
the  Atlantic  Monthly,  Mrs.  Emily  James  Put- 
nam, sometime  the  Dean  of  Barnard,  in  an 
article  on  "  The  Roman  Lady,"  *  has  completely 
undermined  usual  notions  with  regard  to  the  posi- 
tion of  the  Roman  woman.  The  Roman  matrons 
had  rights  all  their  own,  and  succeeded  in  asserting 
themselves  in  many  ways.  There  was  never  any 
seclusion  of  the  women  in  Rome  and  the  Roman 
matrona  at  all  times  enjoyed  personal  freedom, 
entertained  her  husband's  guests,  had  a  voice  in 
his  affairs,  managed  his  house  and  came  and  went 
as  she  pleased.     INIrs.  Putnam  suggests  that  "  in 

*  Atlantic  Monthly,  June,  1910. 


FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE    233 

early  days  she  shared  the  labors  and  the  dangers 
of  the  insecure  life  of  a  weak  people  among 
hostile  neighbors.  It  may  not  be  fanciful  to  say 
that  the  liberty  of  the  Roman  woman  of  classical 
times  was  the  inherited  reward  of  the  prowess 
of  a  pioneer  ancestress,  in  the  same  way  as  the 
social  freedom  of  the  American  woman  to-day 
comes  to  her  from  the  brave  Colonial  house- 
mother, able  to  work  and,  when  need  was,  to 
fight." 

Indeed  the  more  one  studies  social  life  in  Rome 
the  more  clear  does  it  become  that  conditions  were 
very  similar  for  women  to  what  they  are  in  this 
latest  of  the  republics  here  in  America.  This 
will  not  be  surprising  if  we  but  learn  to  realize 
that  the  circumstances  of  the  development  of 
Rome  itself,  the  environment  in  which  the  women 
were  placed  resembled  ours  of  the  later  time  much 
more  closely  than  we  have  had  any  idea  of  until 
recent  j'ears.  The  Italian  historian,  Ferrero,  has 
read  new  lessons  into  Roman  history  for  us  by 
showing  us  the  past  in  terms  of  the  present. 

The  conditions  that  developed  at  Rome,  as  I 
have  said,  were  very  similar  to  those  which  de- 
veloped in  the  modern  American  republic.  Riches 
came,  luxury  arose.  Eastern  slaves  came  to  do  all 
the  work  in  the  household  that  could  formerly 
be  accomplished  by  the  women,  Greek  hand- 
maidens particularly  took  every  solicitude  out 
of  her  hands,  and  then  the  Roman  matron  looked 
around  for  something  to  occupy  herself  with,  and 


234   FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE 

it  was  not  long  before  we  have  expressions  from 
the  men  that  would  remind  us  of  many  things 
that  have  been  said  in  the  last  generation  or  so. 
There  is  a  well-known  speech  of  Cato  delivered 
in  opposition  to  the  repeal  of  the  Oppian  Law 
which  forbade  women  to  hold  property,  that  is 
reported  by  Livy  and  sounds  strangely  modern. 
Mrs.  Putnam  talks  of  it  very  aptly,  "as  an 
expression  of  the  ever  recurrent  uneasiness  of  the 
male  in  the  presence  of  the  insurgent  female." 
" '  If,  Romans,'  said  he,  '  every  individual  among 
us  had  made  it  a  rule  to  maintain  the  prerogative 
and  authority  of  a  husband  with  respect  to  his 
own  wife,  we  should  have  less  trouble  with  the 
whole  sex.  It  was  not  without  painful  emotions 
of  shame  that  I  just  now  made  my  way  into  the 
forum  through  a  crowd  of  women.  Had  I  not 
been  restrained  by  respect  for  the  modesty  and 
dignity  of  some  individuals  among  them,  I  should 
have  said  to  them,  "  AVhat  sort  of  practice 
is  this,  of  running  out  into  public,  besetting 
the  streets,  and  addressing  other  women's  hus- 
bands? Could  not  each  have  made  the  same  re- 
quest to  her  husband  at  home?  Are  your  bland- 
ishments more  seductive  in  public  than  in  private, 
and  with  other  women's  husbands  than  your 
own?" 

Our  ancestors  thought  it  not  proper  that 
women  should  transact  any,  even  private  business, 
without  a  director.  We,  it  seems,  suffer  them 
now    to    interfere   in   the    management    of    state 


FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE   235 

affairs.  Will  you  give  the  reins  to  their  un- 
tractable  nature  and  their  uncontrolled  passions? 
This  is  the  smallest  of  the  injunctions  laid  on 
them  by  usage  or  the  laws,  all  of  which  women 
bear  with  impatience;  they  long  for  liberty,  or 
rather  for  license.  What  will  they  not  attempt 
if  they  win  this  victory?  The  moment  they  have 
arrived  at  an  equality  with  men,  they  will  become 
your  superiors.'  " 

The  social  conditions  which  developed  at  Rome 
are  indeed  so  strangely  like  those  with  which 
we  are  now  familiar  as  to  be  quite  startling.  As 
a  mere  man  I  should  hesitate  to  suggest  this,  since 
it  refers  particularly  to  feminine  affairs  and 
domestic  concerns,  but  since  it  has  been  betrayed 
by  one  of  the  sex  perhaps  I  may  venture  to  quote 
it.  Once  more  I  turn  to  Mrs.  Putnam  for  an  apt 
expression  of  the  conditions.     She  says: 

"  The  Greeks,  who,  to  be  sure,  had  nothing  in 
their  dwellings  that  was  not  beautiful,  had  still 
supposed  the  great  works  of  art  were  for  public 
places.  With  the  Romans  began  the  private  col- 
lection of  chefs-d'oeuvre  in  its  'most  snobbish 
aspect.  The  parts  played  by  the  sexes  in  this 
enterprise  sometimes  showed  the  same  division  of 
labor  that  prevails  very  largely  in  a  certain  great 
nation  of  our  own  day  that  shall  be  nameless :  the 
husband  paid  for  the  best  art  that  money  could 
buy,  and  the  wife  learned  to  talk  about  it  and 
to  entertain  the  artist.  It  is  true  that  the  Roman 
lady  began  also  to  improve  her  mind.     She  stud- 


236    FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE 

ied  Greek,  and  hired  Greek  masters  to  teach  her 
history  and  philosophy.  Ladies  flocked  to  hear 
lectures  on  all  sorts  of  subjects,  originating  the 
odd  connection  between  scholarship  and  fashion 
which  still  persists." 

This  subject  may  be  pursued  with  ever-increas- 
ing recognition  of  similarity  between  that  time 
and  our  own.  For  instance,  Mrs.  Putnam  says: 
"  A  woman  of  fashion,  we  are  told,  reckoned  it 
among  her  ornaments  if  it  were  said  of  her  that 
she  was  well  read  and  a  thinker,  and  that  she 
wrote  lyrics  almost  worthy  of  Sappho.  She,  too, 
must  have  her  hired  escort  of  teachers,  and  listen 
to  them  now  and  then,  at  table  or  while  she  was 
having  her  hair  dressed, — at  other  times  she  was 
too  busy.  And  often  while  the  philosopher  was 
discussing  high  ethical  themes  her  maid  would 
come  in  with  a  love-letter,  and  the  argument 
must  wait  till  it  was  answered. 

"  Nothing  very  important  in  the  way  of  pro- 
duction resulted  from  all  the  lady's  literary  ac- 
tivity. The  verses,  if  Sulpicia's  they  be,  are 
the  sole  surviving  evidence  of  creative  effort 
among  her  kind;  and,  respectable  as  they  are, 
they  need  not  disturb  Sappho's  repose.  It  was 
indirectly  that  the  Roman  lady  affected  literature, 
since  kinds  began  to  be  produced  to  her  special 
taste;  for  it  is  hardly  an  accident  that  the  vers  de 
societe  should  expand,  and  the  novel  originate,  in 
periods  when  for  the  first  time  women  were  a 
large  element  in  the  reading  public." 


FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE    237 

In  our  time  it  has  been  said,  that  one  of  the 
reasons  why  the  young  man  does  not  marry  is 
often  that  he  is  fearful  of  the  superiority  of  the 
college-bred  young  woman.  He  knows  that  he 
himself  has  no  more  intelligence  than  is  absolutely 
necessary  for  the  proper  conduct  of  life,  and  he 
fears  that  his  "  breaks  "  in  grammar,  in  literature, 
in  taste  for  art,  in  social  things,  may  make  him  the 
laughing-stock  of  the  educated  woman.  We  would 
be  reasonably  sure,  most  of  us,  that  at  least  this  is 
the  first  time  in  the  world's  history  that  anything 
like  this  has  happened.  It  is  rather  interesting, 
however,  to  read  some  of  the  reflections  of  the 
Roman  satiric  poets  on  the  state  of  affairs  that 
developed  in  Rome  as  a  consequence  of  study 
and  lectures  and  at  least  supposed  scholarship 
becoming  the  fashion.  "  I  hate  the  woman,"  says 
Juvenal,  "  who  is  always  turning  back  to  the 
grammatical  rules  of  Paleemon  and  consulting 
them;  the  feminine  antiquary  who  recalls  verses 
unknown  to  me,  and  corrects  the  words  of  an  un- 
polished friend  which  even  a  man  would  not  ob- 
serve. Let  a  husband  be  allowed  to  make  a 
solecism  in  peace."  I  recommend  the  reading  of 
Juvenal  to  the  college  young  woman  of  the  mod- 
em time,  not  only  for  its  classic  but  for  its  social 
value. 

Among  the  Greeks  the  position  of  women  was 
quite  different  from  what  is  usually  supposed. 
It  is  only  too  often  the  custom  to  think  that  the 
Greek  women,  confined  to  a  great  degree  to  their 


238    FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE 

houses,  sharing  little  in  the  public  discussions, 
coming  very  slightly  into  public  in  any  way,  were 
more  or  less  despised  by  the  men  and  tolerated, 
but  surely  not  much  respected.  The  place  of  women 
in  life  at  any  time  can  be  best  judged  from  the 
position  assigned  them  by  the  dramatic  poets  of 
any  period.  The  larger  the  mind  of  the  dramatic 
poet,  the  more  of  a  genius  he  is,  the  more  surely 
does  his  estimate  expressed  in  literature  represent 
life  as  he  saw  it.  Ruskin  pointed  out  that  Shake- 
speare has  no  heroes  and  many  heroines;  that, 
while  he  has  no  men  that  stand  in  unmarred  per- 
fection of  character,  "  there  is  scarcely  a  play 
that  has  not  a  perfect  woman  in  it,  steadfast 
in  grave  hope  and  errorless  purpose;  conceived 
in  the  highest  heroic  type  of  humanity."  What 
is  thus  true  of  Shakespeare  is  just  as  true  of  the 
great  dramatic  poets  of  the  Greeks.  In  prac- 
tically all  the  extant  plays  of  ^schylus,  Sophocles 
and  Euripides,  women  are  the  heroines.  They 
are  represented  as  nobler,  braver,  more  capable 
of  suffering,  with  a  better  appreciation  of  their 
ethical  surroundings  and  the  realities  of  life,  than 
the  men  around  them.  As  much  as  Antigone  is 
superior  to  her  quarrelsome  brothers,  as  Alcestis 
rises  above  her  selfish  husband,  as  Tecmessa  is 
superior  to  and  would  have  saved  Ajax  if  only 
he  had  permitted  her,  so  everywhere  do  we  find 
women  occupying  not  a  place  of  equality  but  a 
position  of  superiority. 

These  plays  were  written  by  men.     Just  as  in 


FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE    239 

the  case  of  Shakespeare  they  were  written  by 
men  mainly  to  be  witnessed  by  men,  for  while 
three-fourths  of  our  audiences  at  theatres  now  are 
women,  at  least  three-fourths  of  the  audience  in 
Shakespeare's  time  were  men,  and  in  the  old 
Greek  theatre  the  men  largely  exceeded  the  women 
in  attendance.  These  were  masculine  pictures  of 
the  place  of  woman,  painted  not  in  empty  com- 
pliment but  with  profoundest  respect  and  deep- 
est understanding.  We  honor  these  writers  as  the 
greatest  in  the  history  of  literature  because  they 
saw  life  so  clearly  and  so  truly.  Literature  is 
only  great  when  it  mirrors  life  to  the  nail.  What 
the  Greek  dramatists  had  done.  Homer  had  done 
before  them.  His  picture  of  the  older  Greek 
women  shows  us  that  they  were  on  an  absolute 
equality  in  their  households  with  the  men,  that 
not  only  were  they  thoroughly  respected  and 
loved  for  themselves,  but,  to  repeat  Ruskin,  they 
were  looked  up  to  as  infallibly  wise  counsellors, 
as  the  best  possible  advisers  to  whom  a  man  could 
go,  provided  they  themselves  were  of  high  char- 
acter and  their  hearts,  as  well  as  their  intellects, 
were  interested  in  the  problems  involved. 

There  are,  of  course,  in  all  of  the  dramatists 
some  wicked  women.  In  the  whole  round  of 
Shakespeare's  characters  there  are  only  three 
wicked  women  who  have  degraded  their  woman- 
hood among  the  principal  figures.  These  are 
Lady  Macbeth,  Regan  and  Goneril.  We  have 
corresponding  characters  in  the  Greek  dramatists. 


240    FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE 

Clytemnestra  is  the  Lady  Macbeth  of  Greek 
Tragedy.  Euripides,  the  feminist  as  he  has  been 
called,  has  shown  us,  as  feminists  ever,  more  of 
the  worst  side  of  women  than  his  greater  prede- 
cessors j3Eschylus  and  Sophocles.  He  has  ex- 
hibited the  extent  to  which  religious  over-enthusi- 
asm can  carry  women  in  the  "  Bacchas,"  and  was 
the  first  to  introduce  the  sex  problem.  In  gen- 
eral it  may  be  said,  as  Ruskin  says  of  Shake- 
speare, that  when  a  Greek  dramatist  pictures 
wicked  women  "  they  are  at  once  felt  to  be  fright- 
ful exceptions  to  the  ordinary  laws  of  life;  fatal 
in  their  influence  also  in  proportion  to  the  power 
for  good  which  they  had  abandoned."  Indeed 
tragedy,  as  we  see  it  in  the  great  tragic  poets, 
might  be  defined  as  the  failure  on  the  part  of  a 
good  woman  to  save  the  men  who  are  nearest 
and  dearest  to  her  from  the  faults  into  which  their 
characters  impel  them.  All  the  great  dramatists, 
ancient  and  modern,  represent  women  once  more 
in  Ruskin's  words  as  "  infallibly  faithful  and  wise 
counsellors — incorruptibly  just  and  pure  exam- 
ples— strong  always  to  sanctify,  even  when  they 
cannot  save." 

How  little  there  is  in  any  question  of  evolution 
having  brought  new  influence  or  higher  place  to 
woman  may  be  very  well  realized  from  this 
position  of  women  among  the  old  Greeks.  Glad- 
stone has  called  attention  to  it  very  forcibly  in 
his  "  Essay  on  the  Place  of  Ancient  Greece  in 
the  Providential  Order,"  when  he  says,  "  Outside 


FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE    241 

the  pale  of  Christianity,  it  would  be  difficult  to 
find  a  parallel  in  point  of  elevation  to  the  Greek 
women  of  the  heroic  age."  He  has  taken  the  place 
of  woman  as  representing  the  criterion  by  which 
the  civilization  and  the  culture  of  a  people  at  any 
time  may  be  judged,  though  he  does  not  at  all 
think  that  one  finds  a  constant  upward  tendency 
in  history  in  this  regard.     He  says: 

"  For  when  we  are  seeking  to  ascertain  the 
measure  of  that  conception  which  any  given  race 
has  formed  of  our  nature,  there  is,  perhaps,  no 
single  test  so  effective,  as  the  position  which  it 
assigns  to  woman.  For  as  the  law  of  force  is 
the  law  of  brute  creation,  so  in  proportion  as  he 
is  under  the  yoke  of  that  law  does  man  approxi- 
mate to  the  brute.  And  in  proportion,  on  the  other 
hand,  as  he  has  escaped  from  its  dominion,  is  he 
ascending  into  the  higher  sphere  of  being  and 
claiming*  relationship  with  Deity.  But  the  eman- 
cipation and  due  ascendency  of  woman  are  not 
a  mere  fact,  they  are  the  emphatic  assertion  of  a 
principle,  and  that  principle  is  the  dethronement 
of  the  law  of  force  and  the  enthronement  of  other 
and  higher  laws  in  its  place  and  its  despite." 

Of  course,  of  the  formal  education  of  the  women 
of  Greece  we  know  very  little.  We  do  know 
that  they  would  not  have  been  respected  as  they 
were,  looked  up  to  by  their  sons  and  their  hus- 
bands, honored  as  the  poets  have  shown  them  to 
be,  put  upon  the  stage  as  the  heroines  of  the  race, 
only  that  they  had  been  intellectually  as  well  as 


242    FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE 

morally  the  equals — nay,  the  superiors — of  the 
men  around  them.  We  do  not  know  much  about 
the  teaching  of  women  before  and  during  the 
classical  period,  but  we  can  understand  very  well 
from  what  we  know  of  them  that  they  must  have 
had  good  opportunities  for  education.  Plato,  of 
course,  insists  that  women  should  be  educated  in 
every  way  exactly  as  the  men.  He  mentions 
specifically  gymnastics  and  horseback  riding,  and 
says  that  women  should  be  trained  in  these  as  well 
as  things  intellectual,  for  they  should  have  their 
bodies  developed  as  well  as  their  minds.  His 
reason  for  demanding  equal  education  is  very  in- 
teresting, because  it  is  an  anticipation  of  what  is 
being  said  rather  emphatically  at  the  present  time. 
He  says:  "  If  I  am  right  nothing  can  be  more 
foolish  than  our  modern  fashion  of  training  men 
and  women  differently,  whereby  one-half  of  the 
power  of  the  city  is  lost.  For  reflect  if  women 
are  not  to  have  the  education  of  men  some  other 
must  be  found  for  them,  and  what  other  can  we 
propose? "  His  idea  evidently  was  that  only  one- 
half  those  who  ought  to  be  citizens  were  properly 
trained  for  civic  duties  if  the  education  of  women 
were  neglected. 

It  is  extremely  interesting  in  the  light  of  this 
to  read  some  of  Aristophanes'  plays.  Three  of 
them,  "  Lysistrata,"  the  "  Thesmophoriazusse," 
which  has  a  simpler  name  "  The  Women's  Festi- 
val," for  it  referred  to  the  great  feast  of  Thes- 
mophoria  in  honor  of  Ceres  and  Proserpine,  and 


FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE    MS 

the  "  Ecclesiazusse."  This  last  title  may  be  ren- 
dered a  little  freely  "  The  Female  Parliament," 
for  in  it  women  secure,  by  a  little  fraud,  the 
right  to  vote  and  vote  themselves  into  office  as 
the  main  portion  of  the  plot  of  the  play.  All 
three  of  these  plays  refer  particularly  to  the 
question  of  women's  rights,  and  though  "  The 
Women's  Festival"  was  written  as  a  satire  on 
Euripides  it  is  evident  that  only  this  subject 
was  about  as  prominently  before  the  people  of 
Athens  as  the  question  of  votes  for  women  is 
in  our  time,  Aristophanes  would  not  have  written 
these  satiric  comedies.  The  subjects  of  his  plays 
are  always  the  very  latest  actuality  in  Athens. 
Socrates  was  satirized  in  "  The  Clouds "  within 
a  few  months  of  his  death.  "  The  War "  was 
written  while  Athens  was  actually  engaged  in  it, 
and  "  The  Peace "  was  written  within  a  few 
months  after  the  signing  of  the  treaty. 

Votes  for  women  must  actually  have  been  on 
the  very  centre  of  the  carpet  when  Aristophanes 
wrote  his  "  Ecclesiazusse  "  or  "  Feminine  Parlia- 
ment." Lest  it  should  be  thought  that  I  intrude 
myself  in  any  way  in  trying  to  boil  down  for  you 
the  old  satiric  comedy,  or  that  I  am  modernizing 
Aristophanes  in  order  to  adapt  the  ideas  of  this 
play  more  fully  to  conditions  that  are  around  us 
at  the  present  time,  I  shall  read  to  you  the  ex- 
cellent condensation  of  it  made  by  the  Rev.  W. 
Lucas  Collins,  M.A.,  in  his  "  Aristophanes,"  in 
the  series  of  "  Ancient  Classics  for  English  Read- 


244    FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE 

ers,"  that  scholarly  introduction  to  the  classic 
authors  of  which  Mr.  Collins  is  the  editor.  He 
says: 

"  The  women  have  determined,  under  the  lead- 
ership of  a  clever  lady  named  Praxagora,  to  re- 
form the  constitution  of  Athens.  For  this  pur- 
pose they  will  dress  like  men — beards  included — 
and  occupy  the  seats  in  the  Pnyx,  so  as  to  be  able 
to  command  a  majority  of  votes  in  the  next  public 
assembly,  the  parliament  of  Athens.  Praxagora 
is  strongly  of  opinion  with  the  modern  Mrs.  Poy- 
ser,  that  on  the  point  of  speaking,  at  all  events, 
the  women  have  great  natural  advantages  over  the 
men;  that  'when  they  have  anything  to  say  they 
can  mostly  find  words  to  say  it  in.'  They  hold 
a  midnight  meeting  for  the  purpose  of  rehearsing 
their  intended  speeches  and  getting  accustomed 
to  their  new  clothes.  Two  or  three  of  the  most 
ambitious  orators  unfortunately  break  down  at 
the  very  outset,  much  to  their  leader's  disgust, 
by  addressing  the  assembly  as  '  ladies '  and 
swearing  female  oaths  and  using  many  other  un- 
parliamentary expressions  quite  unbefitting  their 
masculine  attire.  Praxagora  herself,  however, 
makes  a  speech  which  is  very  generally  admired. 
She  complains  of  the  mismanagement  hitherto  of 
public  affairs,  and  asserts  that  the  only  hope  of 
salvation  for  the  state  is  to  put  the  government 
into  the  hands  of  the  women;  arguing,  like  Lysis- 
trata  in  the  comedy  of  that  name,  that  those  who 
have  so  long  managed  the  domestic  establishment 


FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE    245 

successfully  are  best  fitted  to  undertake  the  same 
duties  on  a  larger  scale.  The  women,  too,  are 
shown  by  their  advocate  to  be  highly  conservative, 
and,  therefore,  safe  guardians  of  the  public  in- 
terests : 

"  They  roast  and  boil  after  the  good  old  fashion, 
They  keep  the  holidays  that  were  kept  of  old, 
They  make  their  cheesecakes  by  the  old  receipts. 
They  keep  a  private  bottle  like  their  mothers, 
They  plague  their  husbands — as  they  always  did. 

Even  in  the  management  of  a  campaign,  they  will 
be  found  more  prudent  and  more  competent  than 
the  men: 

"  Being  mothers,  they'll  be  chary  of  the  blood 
Of  their  own  sons,  our  soldiers ;  being  mothers. 
They  will  take  care  their  children  do  not  starve 
When  they're  on  service ;  and,  for  ways  and  means. 
Trust  us,  there's  nothing  cleverer  than  a  woman : 
And  as  for  diplomacy,  they'll  be  hard  indeed 
To  cheat — they  know  too  many  tricks  themselves. 

Her  speech  is  unanimously  applauded;  she  is 
elected  lady-president  on  the  spot,  by  public  ac- 
clamation, and  the  chorus  of  ladies  march  off  to- 
wards the  Pnyx  to  secure  their  places  like  the  old 
gentlemen  in  '  The  Wasps '  ready  for  the  day- 
break. 

"  In  the  next  scene,  two  of  the  husbands  enter 
in  great  perplexity,  one  wrapped  in  his  wife's 
dressing  gown,  and  the  other  with  only  his  under- 


246   FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE 

garment  on  and  without  his  shoes.  They  both 
want  to  go  to  the  assembly  but  cannot  find  their 
clothes.  While  they  are  wondering  what  in  the 
world  their  wives  can  have  done  with  them,  and 
what  is  become  of  the  ladies  themselves,  a  third 
neighbor,  Chremes,  comes  in.  He  has  been  to 
the  assembly;  but  even  he  was  too  late  to  get  the 
threepence  which  was  allowed  out  of  the  public 
treasury  to  all  who  took  their  seat  in  good  time, 
and  which  all  Athenian  citizens,  if  we  may  trust 
their  satirist,  were  so  ludicrously  eager  to  secure. 
The  place  was  quite  full  already,  and  of  strange 
faces,  too.  And  a  handsome  fair-faced  youth 
(Praxagora  in  disguise,  we  are  to  understand) 
had  got  up,  and  amid  the  loud  cheers  of  those 
unknown  voters  had  proposed  and  carried  a  reso- 
lution, that  the  government  of  the  state  should 
be  placed  in  the  hands  of  a  committee  of  ladies, — 
an  experiment  which  had  found  favor  also  with 
others,  chiefly  because  it  was  '  the  only  change 
which  had  not  as  yet  been  tried  at  Athens.'  His 
two  neighbors  are  somewhat  confounded  at  his 
news,  but  congratulate  themselves  on  the  fact  that 
the  wives  will  now,  at  all  events,  have  to  see  to 
the  maintenance  of  the  children,  and  that  '  the 
gods  sometimes  bring  good  out  of  evil.' 

"  The  women  return,  and  get  home  as  quickly 
as  they  can  to  change  their  costume  so  that  the 
trick  by  which  the  passing  of  this  new  decree  has 
been  secured  may  not  be  detected.  Praxagora 
succeeds  in  persuading  her  husband  that  she  had 


FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE   247 

been  sent  for  in  a  hurry  to  attend  a  sick  neighbor, 
and  only  borrowed  his  coat  to  put  on  '  because  the 
night  was  so  cold  '  and  his  strong  shoes  and  staff, 
in  order  that  any  evil-disposed  person  might 
take  her  for  a  man  as  she  tramped  along,  and  so 
not  interfere  with  her.  She  at  first  affects  not 
to  have  heard  of  the  reform  which  has  been  just 
carried,  but  when  her  husband  explains  it,  de- 
clares it  will  make  Athens  a  paradise.  Then 
she  confesses  to  him  that  she  has  herself  been 
chosen,  in  full  assembly,  '  Generalissima  of  the 
state.'  She  puts  the  question,  however,  just  as 
we  have  all  seen  it  put  by  a  modern  actress, — 
'  will  this  house  agree  to  it  ? '  And  if  Praxagora 
was  at  all  attractively  got  up,  we  may  be  sure 
it  was  carried  by  acclamation  in  the  affirmative. 
Then,  in  the  first  place,  there  shall  be  no  more 
poverty;  there  shall  he  community  of  goods,  and 
so  there  shall  he  no  law  suits,  and  no  gambling 
and  no  informers.  (They  promised  more  even 
than  our  suffragettes — if  possible.)  Moreover, 
there  shall  be  community  of  wives, — and  all  the 
ugly  wives  shall  have  the  first  choice  of  husbands. 
So  she  goes  off  to  her  public  duties,  to  see  that 
these  resolutions  are  carried  out  forthwith ;  the  good 
citizen  begging  leave  to  follow  close  at  her  side, 
so  that  all  who  see  him  may  say,  '  What  a  fine 
fellow  is  our  Generalissima's  husband ! ' 

"  The  scene  changes  to  another  street  in  Athens, 
where  the  citizens  are  bringing  out  all  their 
property,    to    be    carried    into    the    market-place 


248    FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE 

and  inventoried  for  the  common  stock.  Citizen 
'  A '  dances  with  delight  as  he  marshals  his  dilapi- 
dated chattels  into  a  mock  procession — from  the 
meal  sieve,  which  he  kisses,  it  looks  so  pretty  with 
its  powdered  hair,  to  the  iron  pot  which  looks  as 
black  '  as  if  Lysimachus  '  (some  well-known  fop 
of  the  day,  possibly  present  among  the  audience) 
'  had  been  boiling  his  hair  dye  in  it.'  This  pa- 
triot, at  least,  has  not  much  to  lose,  and  hopes 
he  may  have  something  to  gain,  under  these  fe- 
male communists. 

"  But  his  neighbor,  who  is  better  off,  is  in  no 
such  hurry.  The  Athenians,  as  he  remarks,  are 
always  making  new  laws  and  abrogating  them; 
what  has  been  passed  to-day  very  likely  will  be 
repealed  to-morrow.  Besides  it  is  a  good  old  na- 
tional habit  to  take,  not  to  give.  He  will  wait  a 
while  before  he  gives  in  an  inventory  of  his  pos- 
sessions. (One  might  think  of  an  income  tax 
law  in  the  United  States  in  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury.) 

"But  at  this  point  comes  the  city-beadle  (an 
appointment  now  held,  of  course,  by  a  lady) 
with  a  summons  to  a  banquet  provided  for  all 
citizens  out  of  the  public  funds:  and  amongst 
the  items  in  the  bill  of  fare  is  one  dish  whose 
name  is  composed  of  seventy-seven  syllables — 
which  Aristophanes  gives  us,  but  which  the  reader 
shall  be  spared.  (It  has  been  boiled  down  by 
the  American  schoolboy  to  just  'hash.')  Citizen 
'  B  '  at  once  delivers  it  as  his  opinion  that  '  every 


FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE    249 

man  of  proper  feeling  should  support  the  consti- 
tution to  the  utmost  of  his  ability,'  and  hurries  to 
take  his  place  at  the  feast.  There  are  some 
difficulties  caused,  very  naturally  by  the  new  com- 
munistic regulations  as  to  providing  for  the  old 
and  ugly  women,  but  with  these  we  need  not  deal. 
The  piece  ends  with  an  invitation,  issued  by  direc- 
tion of  Praxagora  through  her  lady-chamberlain, 
to  the  public  generally,  spectators  included,  to 
join  the  national  banquet  which  is  to  inaugurate 
the  new  order  of  things." 

In  a  previous  comedy  Aristophanes  had  told  of 
another  interference  of  women  in  the  political 
life  of  Athens  that  contains  so  many  reminders 
of  the  modern  time,  and  shows  so  definitely  how 
old  the  new  is,  that  it  deserves  a  place  here. 
Above  all,  the  desertions  from  the  cause  of  the 
women  when  they  find  that  their  political  duties 
interfere  with  their  home  duties,  and  that  they 
have  to  sacrifice  many  of  the  joys  of  life  even 
though  they  are  duties  that  may  at  times  seem 
irksome  enough, — children,  household  work,  etc., 
— for  these  newer  obligations  with  which  they  have 
so  little  sympathy,  is  especially  interesting.  Once 
more  I  prefer  to  take  the  Rev.  Mr.  Collins'  sum- 
mary of  the  play  in  order  that  it  may  be  clear 
that  Aristophanes'  meaning  is  not  being  stretched 
for  the  purpose  of  making  points  with  regard  to 
present-day  conditions.  After  all,  Mr.  Collins' 
little  book  was  written  very  nearly  thirty  years 
ago,   when   very  little   of  the   present   feministic 


250    FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE 

movement,  at  least  in  the  form  in  which 
we  are  now  familiar  with  it,  had  asserted  it- 
self. 

"  They  determine,  under  the  leading  of  the 
clever  Lysistrata,  wife  to  one  of  the  magistrates, 
to  take  the  question  (of  the  ending  of  the  war) 
into  their  own  hands.  They  resolve  upon  a  volun- 
tary separation  from  their  husbands — a  practical 
divorce  a  mensa  et  thoro — until  peace  with  Sparta 
shall  be  proclaimed.  It  is  resolved  that  a  body  of 
the  elder  matrons  shall  seize  the  Acropolis  and 
make  themselves  masters  of  the  public  treasury. 
These  form  one  of  the  two  choruses  in  the  play, 
the  other  being  composed  of  the  old  men  of 
Athens.  The  latter  proceed  (with  a  good  deal  of 
comic  difficulty,  owing  to  the  steepness  of  the 
ascent  and  their  shortness  of  breath)  to  attack 
the  Acropolis,  armed  with  torches  and  fagots 
and  pans  of  charcoal,  with  which  they  hope  to 
smoke  out  the  occupants.  But  the  women  have 
provided  themselves  with  buckets  of  water,  which 
they  empty  on  the  heads  of  their  assailants,  who 
soon  retire  discomfited  to  call  the  police.  But  the 
police  are,  in  their  turn,  repulsed  by  these  resolute 
insurgents,  whom  they  do  not  exactly  know  how 
to  deal  with.  At  last  a  member  of  the  public 
committee  comes  forward  to  parley,  and  a  dia- 
logue takes  place  between  him  and  Lysistrata. 
*  Why,'  he  asks,  '  have  they  thus  taken  possession 
of  the  citadel  ? '  '  They  have  resolved  henceforth 
to  manage  the  public  revenues  themselves,'  is  the 


FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE    251 

reply,  '  and  not  allow  them  to  be  applied  to  carry- 
ing on  this  ruinous  war.'  '  That  is  no  business  for 
women,'  argues  the  magistrate.  '  Why  not? '  says 
Lysistrata ;  '  the  wives  have  long  had  the  manage- 
ment of  the  private  purses  of  the  husbands,  to 
the  great  advantage  of  both.'  In  short,  the  women 
have  made  up  their  minds  to  have  their  voice  no 
longer  ignored,  as  hitherto,  in  questions  of  peace 
and  war.  Their  remonstrances  have  always  been 
met  with  the  taunt  that  '  war  is  the  business  of 
men;'  and  to  any  question  they  have  ventured  to 
ask  their  husbands  on  such  points,  the  answer  has 
always  been  the  old  cry — old  as  the  days  of 
Homer — 'Go  spin,  you  jade,  go  spin!'  But 
they  will  put  up  with  it  no  longer.  As  they  have 
always  had  wit  enough  to  clear  the  tangled 
threads  in  their  work,  so  they  have  no  doubt  of 
settling  all  these  difficulties  and  complications  in 
international  disputes,  if  it  is  left  to  them.  But 
what  concern,  her  opponent  asks,  can  women  have 
with  war,  who  contribute  nothing  to  its  dangers 
and  hardships  ?  '  Contribute,  indeed ! '  says  the 
lady;  'we  contribute  the  sons  who  carry  it  on.' 
And  she  throws  down  to  her  adversary  her  hood, 
her  basket  and  her  spindle,  and  bids  him  '  go  home 
and  card  wool,' — it  is  all  such  old  men  are  fit  for; 
henceforth  the  proverb  (of  the  men's  making) 
shall  be  reversed, — '  War  shall  be  Ihe  care  of  the 
women.'  The  magistrate  retires  not  having  got 
the  best  of  it,  very  naturally,  in  an  encounter  of 
words;  and  the  chorus  of  elders  raise  the  cry — 


252    FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE 

well  known  as  a  popular  partisan  cry  at  Athens, 
and  sure  to  call  forth  a  hearty  laugh  in  such 
juxtaposition — that  the  women  are  designing  to 
*  set  up  a  tyranny ! ' 

"  But  poor  Lysistrata  soon  has  her  troubles. 
Her  unworthy  recruits  are  fast  deserting  her. 
They  are  going  off  to  their  husbands  in  the  most 
sneaky  manner — creeping  out  through  the  little 
hole  under  the  citadel  which  led  to  the  celebrated 
cave  of  Pan,  and  letting  themselves  down  from 
the  walls  by  ropes  at  the  risk  of  breaking  their 
necks.  Those  who  are  caught  all  have  excellent 
excuses.  One  has  some  fleeces  of  fine  Milesian 
wool  at  home  which  must  be  seen  to, — she  is  sure 
the  moths  are  eating  them.  Another  has  urgent 
occasion  for  the  doctor;  a  third  cannot  sleep 
alone  for  fear  of  the  owls — of  which,  as  every  one 
knows,  there  were  really  a  great  many  at  Athens. 
The  husbands,  too,  are  getting  uncomfortable 
without  their  housekeepers;  there  is  no  one  to 
cook  their  victuals;  and  one  poor  soul  comes  and 
humbly  entreats  his  wife  at  least  to  come  home 
and  wash  and  dress  the  baby. 

"  It  is  becoming  plain  that  either  the  war  or 
the  wives'  resolution  will  soon  give  way,  when 
there  arrives  an  embassy  from  Sparta.  They 
cannot  stand  this  general  strike  of  the  wives. 
They  are  agreed  already  with  their  enemies,  the 
Athenians,  on  one  point — as  to  the  women — that 
the  old  Greek  comedian's  proverb,  which  we  have 
borrowed  and  translated  freely,  is  true, — 


FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE    253 

"  There  is  no  living  with  'em — or  without  'em." 

The}^  are  come  to  offer  terms  of  peace.  When 
two  parties  are  already  of  one  mind,  as  Lysis- 
trata  observes,  they  are  not  long  in  coming  to 
an  understanding.  A  treaty  is  made  on  the 
spot,  with  remarkably  few  preliminaries." 

Whenever  we  have  sufficient  remains  to  illus- 
trate the  life  of  any  period  of  history  with  rea- 
sonable completeness,  we  find  women  occupying 
a  much  more  important  place  than  is  usually 
conceded  to  them.  The  trouble  is  that  we  assume 
that  we  know  something  about  the  past,  because 
we  have  somewhere  obtained  a  vague  notion  of 
it  and  then  we  fill  in  details  in  accordance  with 
that  preconceived  notion.  The  general  rule,  un- 
fortunately, is  to  make  as  little  of  the  past  as 
possible  and  to  consider  that,  of  course,  they  must 
have  been  very  different  from  us,  and  surely  far 
behind  us  in  everything.  The  more  one  really 
knows  of  history,  however,  the  less  does  one  think 
this.  We  must  not  let  our  complacent  self- 
satisfaction  with  our  own  generation  disturb  our 
proper  appreciation  of  past  generations,  however. 
An  English  writer  said  not  very  long  ago,  and 
now  that  we  have  reviewed  various  periods  in  the 
history  of  feminine  influence  and  of  education, 
I  think  that  you  will  recognize  the  justice  of  what 
he  said,  "  It  is  too  much  the  easy  custom  of  the 
present  self-admiring  day — not  a  bit  more  self- 
satisfied,  after  all,  than  each  day  has  been  in  its 


254    FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE 

turn — to  hold  the  women  of  the  past  as  something 
little  better  than  dolls  for  their  attainments,  a 
little  dearer  than  slaves  for  their  position  and 
despicably  content  therein."  Nothing  could  well 
be  less  true  than  this. 

What  is  apt  to  strike  us,  however,  after  a 
review  of  the  phases  of  feminine  education  and 
influence  such  as  I  have  sketched,  is  that  there 
are  undoubtedly  times  during  which  very  little  is 
heard  of  feminine  influence  and  almost  nothing  at 
all  of  feminine  education.  There  are  periods 
on  the  other  hand  when  these  subjects  are  the 
very  centre  of  human  interest.  This  interest 
waxes  to  a  certain  climax  and  then  apparently 
wanes.  What  is  the  reason  for  these  waxings 
and  wanings?  Is  there  anything  that  we  know 
about  them  that  will  help  us  to  account  for  them? 
If  women  have  once  achieved  a  certain  position 
and  have  once  secured  certain  privileges  in  the 
matter  of  education,  it  might  reasonably  be  ex- 
pected that,  barring  some  great  cataclysm  or  po- 
litical upheaval,  that  completely  disrupted  society, 
they  would  not  abandon  these  hard-won  rights 
and  precious  privileges,  and  so  we  should  not 
have  to  be  going  through  the  storm  and  stress  of 
another  period  of  discussion,  controversy,  oppo- 
sition with  regard  to  woman's  rights.  How  is 
it  that  rights  once  attained — and  never  unless 
after  a  struggle,  for  no  matter  how  civilized  a 
period  or  how  cultured  a  people,  they  do  not 
grant  rights  to  any  class  unless  forced  to  do  so — 


FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE    255 

that  these  rights  have  afterwards  been  lost, 
or  at  least  greatly  diminished  and  partly  for- 
gotten? 

In  this  we  come  upon  one  of  the  mysteries 
of  history  and  of  the  life  of  man.  How  is  it  that 
men  secure  certain  knowledge  and  then  forget  it — 
literally  forget  all  about  it — how  is  it  that  men 
make  discoveries  and  then  lose  sight  of  them  so 
that  they  have  to  be  made  over  again;  how  is  it 
that  men  even  make  useful  inventions  of  all  kinds 
and  these  are  lost  sight  of  and  the  invention  has 
to  be  made  over  again  in  succeeding  generations? 
How  is  it  that  the  Suez  Canal  was  opened  at 
least  once  before  our  time  and  then  allowed  to 
fill  up  with  sand,  and  we  had  to  do  the  work  all 
over  again  two  generations  ago?  How  is  it  that 
America  was  discovered  at  least  twice,  probably 
oftener,  before  Columbus'  time,  and  yet  his  was  a 
real  discovery?  We  actually  have  Papal  docu- 
ments addressed  to  bishops  in  Greenland  from 
Popes  in  the  thirteenth  century,  mentioning  mis- 
sions on  the  mainland  of  America.  There  are 
traditions  that  seem  to  point  beyond  all  doubt 
to  the  fact  that  the  Irish  monks  were  here  in 
America  in  the  eighth  and  ninth  centuries.  Those 
traditions  come  from  three  or  four  different 
sources.  There  was  a  reverence  for  the  cross 
among  the  Indians  in  certain  parts  of  the  coun- 
try. A  tradition  of  white-robed  priests  who 
came  from  over  the  sea.  The  Norse  name  for 
America  was  Irland  it  Mikla,  Ireland  the  Great, 


256   FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE 

that  is,  the  island  of  the  Irish,  much  larger  than 
Ireland  itself  and  lying  beyond  it  in  the  seas. 

How  is  it,  indeed,  that  there  are  many  discov- 
eries and  rediscoveries  of  the  same  principle  in 
science?  Heron's  engine  at  Alexandria  was  an 
anticipation  of  the  turbine  principle  in  the  ap- 
plication of  steam.  When  we  dug  up  surgical 
instruments  at  Pompeii  we  were  surprised  to 
find  that  they  had  the  form  of  many  instruments 
that  we  thought  we  had  invented  in  our  time.  In 
glass-making,  in  iron-working,  in  all  the  arts  and 
crafts  precious  secrets  are  discovered,  then  lost, 
then  rediscovered,  and  this  may  even  happen  sev- 
eral times.  We  find  no  sign  of  a  continuous 
progress,  but  recurring  phases  that  represent 
ups  and  downs  in  man's  interest  in  certain  things 
and  his  achievements  corresponding  to  the  inten- 
sity of  his  interest.  Such  a  thing  as  a  regular 
progressive  advance  one  finds  nowhere  in  history. 
Nations  do  not  maintain  their  power  after  they 
have  achieved  it.  Just  as  soon  as  the  struggle  to 
maintain  themselves  is  over,  internal  troubles 
of  various  kinds  set  disintegrating  factors  at 
work  and  it  is  not  long  before  decadence  can  be 
noted  and  then  the  disappearance  of  the  people 
or  at  least  of  its  national  prominence  becomes 
inevitable.  We  shall  not  be  surprised  to  find 
ups  and  downs  in  the  history  of  feminine  influence 
and  education,  for  this  is  the  rule  of  history.  We 
have  only  been  laboring  under  the  false  notion 
that  definite  progress  was  the  rule  because  of  over- 


FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE    257 

absorption  in  the  evolution  theory — but  it  is  not. 
There  seems  to  be  in  this  matter  a  certain  check 
upon  the  occupation  of  woman  with  interests  ex- 
ternal to  her  household  that  would  tempt  her  to 
occupy  herself  much  with  duties  extraneous  to  the 
family  life.  After  all,  one  thing  is  perfectly 
clear.  Only  women  can  be  mothers.  We  have  not 
succeeded  even  in  getting  the  slightest  possible 
hint  of  any  method  of  continuing  the  race  except 
by  the  ordinary  process  of  maternity.  Whatever 
of  direct  evolution  the  advocates  of  the  theory 
of  evolution  have  suggested  as  coming  in  human- 
ity so  that  it  may  be  the  subject  of  observation, 
has  been  due  in  their  minds  to  the  lengthening 
of  the  period  during  which  the  young  of  the 
race  are  cared  for.  As  we  go  up  in  the  scale 
of  life  from  the  lowest  to  the  highest,  infancy — 
meaning  by  that  the  period  during  which  the  off- 
spring is  cared  for  by  the  parents — lengthens. 
In  the  very  small  beings  there  is  none.  As  we 
ascend  in  the  scale  we  find  traces  of  parental 
care.  Then  comes  occupation  of  the  parents  with 
their  offspring  from  a  few  hours  up  to  a  day  or 
two,  and  then  finally  months  and  j^ears,  until  in 
the  human  race  infancy  has  been  gradually  pro- 
longed to  twenty  years.  This  is  Herbert  Spen- 
cer's observation  and  it  is  interesting  and  sug- 
gestive. A  mother  then  especially,  though  also 
a  father,  must  care  for  children,  not  alone  for 
months  before  and  after  birth,  but  for  a  score  of 
years. 


258   FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE 

Occupation  with  other  things,  though  neces- 
sary, detracts  from  this  care  of  children,  and  if 
exaggerated  leads  to  the  celibate  condition  or 
that  approaching  it,  the  limitation  of  families 
within  narrow  bounds.  The  mother  of  but  two 
or  three  children  may  occupy  herself  with  other 
things  and,  indeed,  has  to  find  other  occupation  of 
mind.  At  certain  periods  in  the  world's  history 
a  certain  number  of  these  women  accumulate  and 
the  tendency  to  celibacy  or  to  very  limited  ma- 
ternity makes  itself  felt,  and  then  this  class  of 
people  usually  fails  to  propagate  enough  of  the 
species  like  themselves  to  take  their  places  in  the 
world.  It  is  a  matter  of  common  comment  at  the 
present  moment  that  if  the  women's  colleges  were 
to  depend  on  the  progeny  of  their  graduates  to 
fill  the  classes  in  succeeding  years,  the  numbers 
at  the  schools  not  only  would  not  increase  but 
would  constantly  tend  to  decrease.  Of  course 
this  same  thing  is  true  of  the  descendants  of  the 
male  graduates  of  many  of  our  Eastern  universi- 
ties, and  I  believe  that  attention  has  been  particu- 
larly called  to  it  with  regard  to  our  three  oldest 
universities.  Such  are  the  risks  of  life  and  the 
fatalities  incident  to  disease,  even  with  our  present 
improved  hygienic  conditions,  that  an3'thing  less 
than  five  or  six  children  in  a  family  will  not  prove 
sufficient  eventually  to  replace  the  parents  in 
their  activities.  When  to  small  families  is  added 
the  number  of  celibates  consequent  upon  absorp- 
tion in  self-improvement,  then  the  failure  of  the 


FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE   259 

cultured  classes  even  to  replace  themselves  be- 
comes very  manifest,  and  hence  our  dwindling 
native  populations,  if  we  take  that  word  to  mean 
the  families  that  have  been  in  the  country  for 
more  than  two  generations. 

Nature  does  not  confide  conditions  in  humanity 
entirely  to  mah,  however.  This  would  be  to  leave 
mankind  subject  to  certain  whims  and  fashions 
and  the  caprices  of  times  and  people.  There  are 
many  biological  checks  which  maintain  mankind 
in  a  certain  equilibrium.  A  typical  example  of 
it  is  the  regulation  of  the  number  of  each  sex 
born.  In  general  the  proportion  of  the  sexes 
to  one  another  maintains  a  ratio  very  near  that  of 
equality  under  ordinary  natural  conditions.  This 
obtains  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  man  is  so  much 
more  subject  to  accidents  than  woman,  so  much 
more  likely  to  catch  and  succumb  to  disease  and 
so  much  more  likely  to  wear  himself  out  pre- 
maturely as  the  result  of  his  labors.  The  death- 
rate  among  women  at  all  ages  is  lower  than  that 
of  men,  yet  a  constant,  definite  equilibrium  of  the 
sexes  is  maintained  with  accurate  nicety.  There 
is  evidently  some  check  existing  in  nature  itself 
that  prevents  any  disturbance  of  this  fixed  ratio. 

Not  only  is  nature  able  to  maintain  this,  but 
in  cases  where,  because  of  some  serious  disturbance 
of  natural  conditions,  a  decided  inequality  of  the 
ratio  occurs  by  accident,  nature  is  able  to  restore 
conditions  to  the  previous  normal,  without  our 
lieing  quite  able  to  understand  just   how   this  is 


260    FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE 

accomplished.  We  do  not  know  how  sex  is  deter- 
mined. There  have  been  many  explanations  of- 
fered, but  all  of  them  have  proved  inadequate  and 
most  of  them  quite  nugatory.  In  spite  of  our 
lack  of  knowledge  there  have  been  times  in  his- 
tory when  a  striking  manifestation  of  nature's 
power  has  occurred.  For  instance,  after  the 
Thirty  Years'  War  in  Germany  the  ratio  between 
the  sexes  had  been  so  much  disturbed  that,  ac- 
cording to  some  historians,  there  were  probably 
nearly  twice  as  many  women  as  men  in  existence 
in  the  Germanic  countries.  The  men  had  been  cut 
off  by  the  war  itself,  by  famines  consequent  upon 
it,  by  extreme  and  unusual  efforts  to  support 
their  families  and  by  epidemic  diseases  in  camps 
and  campaigns.  The  disproportion  was  so  great 
that  a  relaxation  of  the  marriage  laws  was  per- 
mitted for  a  time  in  certain  of  the  countries  and 
men   were   allowed   to   have   two   wives. 

Under  these  conditions  nature  at  once  began  to 
reassert  herself,  the  number  of  male  births  was 
greatly  increased  and  the  disproportion  between 
the  sexes  immediately  began  to  lessen.  At  the  end 
of  scarcely  more  than  three  generations  the  normal 
equilibrium  of  the  sexes  was  restored  and  there 
was  about  an  equal  number  of  men  and  women 
again.  Here  we  have  the  effect  of  one  of  these 
curiously  interesting  biological  checks  upon  man's 
foolish  quarrelsomeness  which  might  result  in  a 
too  great  disproportion  of  the  sexes. 

We  shall  not  be  surprised,  then,  if  we  find  other 


FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE    261 

such  biological  checks  and  compensations  exerting 
themselves.  In  recent  years  Sir  Francis  Galton, 
the  cousin  of  Darwin,  who  is  recognized  as  the 
best  living  authority  in  statistical  biology,  and 
Professor  Karl  Pearson,  who  has  done  more 
than  any  one  else  to  bring  out  many  curious  and 
interesting  but  very  important  biological  laws 
by  the  study  of  statistics,  have  insisted  in  their 
studies  of  the  effect  of  the  law  of  primogeniture, 
that  when  there  are  small  families,  the  children 
are  more  likely  to  be  nervous,  oftener  have  an 
inclination  to  mental  disease  and  have  less  resistive 
vitality  against  disease  in  general  than  the  average 
child  of  the  larger  families.  There  is  a  small 
but  significant  advantage  in  vitality  that  accrues 
to  later  children  of  a  family.  This  is  so  contrary 
to  the  frequently  expressed  opinion  that  only  the 
children  of  small  families  can  be  brought  up 
properh^  to  resist  disease  and  have  such  advan- 
tages in  their  education  and  nutrition  as  to  be  of 
better  health,  that  I  should  hesitate  to  quote  it, 
only  that  it  has  behind  it  the  authority  of  such 
distinguished  scientists  as  Galton  and  Pearson. 
They  are  both  conservative  Englishmen,  the}^  have 
no  theorj-^  of  their  own  that  they  are  supporting, 
they  have  no  axe  to  grind  in  things  social  and 
political  for  the  launching  of  the  new  theory,  they 
are  only  making  observations  on  the  facts  pre- 
sented and  the  data  that  have  been .  collected. 

Here  is  another  striking  example  of  a  check  on 
certain   tendencies   in   humanity   that   apparently 


262    FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE 

nature  does  not  approve  of,  or  to  avoid  personify- 
ing a  process,  we  had  better  say  are  not  according 
to  nature's  laws.  The  small  family  does  not  per- 
petuate itself.  It  has  certain  natural  disadvan- 
tages that  w^ork  against  it.  It  gradually  disap- 
pears and  the  races  of  larger  families  maintain 
themselves.  We  need  not  have  had  recourse  to 
Galton's  and  Pearson's  principle  in  this  matter, 
for  we  see  the  results  of  the  small  family  in 
present-day  history.  France  is  decreasing  in  popu- 
lation. Our  own  Puritan  families  are  dying  out. 
American  families  generally  of  more  than  three 
generations  are  not  perpetuating  themselves. 
The  teeming  fertilitj^  of  the  poor  immigrants  who 
come  to  us  is,  with  immigration  itself,  supplying 
our  increase  in  population.  Our  nation  is,  as  a 
result,  gradually  becoming  something  very  differ- 
ent from  what  our  forefathers  anticipated. 

What  has  apparently  happened,  then,  in  the 
history  of  feminine  education  and  influence  is 
that,  whenever  women  became  occupied  with  such 
modes  of  education,  or  the  cultivation  of  phases 
of  feminine  influence  that  took  them  out  of  their 
houses,  away  from  family  life  and  far  from  the 
hearthstone,  the  particular  classes  of  women  who 
thus  became  interested  did  not  propagate  them- 
selves, or  propagated  themselves  to  such  a  limited 
degree  that,  after  a  time,  their  kind  disappeared 
to  a  great,  extent.  The  domestic  woman  with 
tendencies  to  care  much  more  for  her  maternal 
duties    than    for   any    extra-domiciliary    successes 


FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE    263 

propagated  herself,  raised  her  children  with  her 
ideals,  cultivated  domesticity  and  consciously  or 
unconsciously  fostered  the  mother  idea  as  the 
main  feature  of  woman's  life  and  her  principal 
source  not  onh'-  of  occupation,  but  of  joy  in  the 
living,  of  consolation  and  of  genuine  accomplish- 
ment. The  tendency,  as  can  readily  be  seen  in  our 
own  time,  of  the  other  class  of  woman  is  largely 
to  foster,  often  unconsciously,  but  of  course  often 
consciously  also,  the  opposite  notions.  She  talks 
of  the  slavery  of  child-raising,  the  limitations 
of  the  home  woman,  the  drudgery  of  domestic 
hfe,  forgetting  that  life  is  work  and  that  the  only 
happiness  in  life  is  to  have  work  that  you  want  to 
do,  whatever  it  may  be,  but  all  this  talk  has  its 
inevitable  effect  upon  all  but  the  born  mother 
woman,  and  the  result  is  the  fad  for  public  occu- 
pation instead  of  domestic  life. 

It  is  easy  to  see  what  the  result  of  the  opposite 
opinion  is.  Every  tendencj'^  of  the  intellectual 
woman  so-called  is  to  repress  such  natural  in- 
stincts as  lead  to  the  propagation  of  the  race  and 
the  continuance  of  her  kind.  Of  course  it  will  be 
said  that  intellectual  women  are  quite  willing  to 
have  one  or  two  children.  First,  this  is  not  true 
for  a  great  many  of  them.  Secondly,  for  those 
who  have  one  or  two  children  losses  by  death  and 
failure  to  marry  in  the  second  generation,  because 
of  conscious  or  unconscious  discouragements  and 
the  exaggeration  of  ideas  with  regard  to  the 
danger   of  maternity,   lead   often  to   a  complete 


264    FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE 

suppression  of  the  family  in  the  second  or  third 
generation. 

Apparently  the  rule  of  history  is  that  there  are 
four  or  five  generations  of  women  interested  in 
intellectual  things  particularly,  who  follow  one 
another  in  these  periods  of  special  feminine  educa- 
tion and  exertion  of  influence  outside  of  the  home. 
Then  there  comes  a  distinct  decadence  of  the 
feminist  movement,  because  of  the  gradual  diminu- 
tion in  number  of  women  who  are  interested  in 
such  things,  and  then,  while  there  are  always  cer- 
tain women  who  develop  great  intellectual  abilities 
which  require  a  larger  stage  than  the  home  for 
their  display,  and  while  there  are  always  some 
who  find  an  intellectual  career  or  rather  make  it, 
very  little  is  heard  of  feminism  and  women's 
claims.  They  are  satisfied  to  rule  their  hus- 
bands, to  raise  their  children,  to  be  saints  to  their 
sons  and  elder  sisters  to  their  daughters,  and  the 
feminine  world  has  its  simple  joys  and  not  much 
fuss  about  rights. 

It  may  seem  far-fetched  thus  to  appeal  to  a 
biological  check  or  a  great  underlying  natural  law 
in  a  matter  of  this  kind,  but  in  recent  years  biology 
has  so  often  been  appealed  to  to  justify  unsocial 
conditions  that  its  true  application  needs  to  be 
pointed  out.  We  have  heard,  for  instance,  much 
of  the  struggle  for  life  and  the  competition  that 
is  supposed  to  be  inevitable  in  nature,  while  all 
the  time  it  has  apparently  been  forgotten  that 
there  is  no  struggle   for  life  within  the  species 


FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE    265 

except  when  there  is  some  disturbance  of  the 
ordinary  order  of  nature,  as  in  times  of  famine, 
or  when  a  mother  is  foraging  for  her  children. 
On  the  contrary,  mutual  aid  is  the  rule  within  the 
species  and  there  is  no  animal  small  or  large, 
from  the  ant  to  the  elephant,  that  does  not  help 
its  kind  and  has  not  certain  wonderful  instincts 
for  helpfulness,  the  origin  of  which  we  do  not 
know,  but  which  are  founded  in  nature  itself. 
Man  justifies  inhumanity  to  man  by  the  supposed 
struggle  for  life,  while  all  the  time  nature  teaches 
us  the  opposite  law. 

Nature's  way  is  that  of  elimination.  Her  in- 
terest is  the  race.  She  cares  very  little  for  the 
individual  and  guards  onh^  her  great  purpose  of 
securing  the  propagation  of  the  race.  Apparently 
such  intense  preoccupation  with  the  intellectual 
life  as  provides  opportunity  for  serious  education, 
for  literary  work  and  for  the  exertion  of  diffuse 
influence  in  a  community,  does  not  make  for  the 
propagation  of  the  race  or  its  proper  preserva- 
tion. We  can  see  this  easil}'^  in  the  world  around 
us,  in  the  limited  progeny  of  those  who  live  the 
intellectual  or  selfish  life  to  the  exclusion  of  racial 
interests.  This  is  opposed  to  nature's  purpose  and 
she  proceeds  to  eliminate  those  who  stand  in  her 
way.  This  is  not  done  by  any  cataclysmic  process 
but  by  a  law  of  nature.  Those  involved  in  the 
influence  disturbing  to  her  purpose  eliminate 
themselves.  This  is  as  true  for  indulgence  in 
toxic    substances   that    produce    certain    personal 


266    FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE 

momentary  good  feelings,  as  for  the  more  deliber- 
ate avoidance  of  certain  of  nature's  burdens  which 
brings  about  a  certain  negative  pleasure  at  least  by 
lessening  the  amount  of  pain  that  has  to  be  borne 
and  trouble  to  be  endured.  To  these  pains  and 
troubles  nature  has  attached  some  of  the  best  of 
the  compensations  of  life.  The  domestic  joys  are 
properly  man's  highest  source  of  unalloyed  pleas- 
ure without  remorse. 

Our  review  of  the  phases  of  feminine  educa- 
tion and  influence  would  seem  to  show  that  there 
has  occurred  a  series  of  cycles  about  three  cen- 
turies apart  in  the  history  of  the  race,  during 
which  women  become  very  much  occupied  with 
things  external  to  their  household.  Such  cycles 
are  represented  by  our  own  period,  that  of  the 
Renaissance  in  the  sixteenth  century,  that  of  the 
university  period  in  the  thirteenth  century,  and 
then  that  at  Charlemagne's  court  earlier,  though 
the  barbaric  conditions  following  the  migration  of 
nations  probably  did  not  allow  a  natural  expres- 
sion of  the  tendencies  at  this  time.  Earlier  in 
history,  in  the  first  century  before  Christ  and 
just  after  and  in  the  fourth  century  before  Christ 
in  Greece,  there  had  been,  as  we  have  pointed 
out,  such  cycles.  During  the  intervening  cen- 
turies there  is  a  negative  phase  in  the  movement, 
so  that  feminism,  under  which  is  understood 
woman's  expression  of  herself  outside  of  her  home 
and  the  exertion  of  her  influence  apart  from  her 
family   and   immediate   friends,    is   very   little   in 


FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE    267 

evidence.  During  these  times  the  domestic  woman 
reasserts  herself.  During  the  positive  phases 
of  the  movement  she  continues  to  have  her  chil- 
dren, the  feminists  do  not,  or  at  least  not  to  the 
same  extent.  They  and  their  kind  are  gradu- 
ally eliminated,  at  least  to  a  great  degree,  and  so 
the  negative  phase  comes  on. 

This  is  not  an  argument  and  is  not  meant  as 
such.  It  is  meant  to  be  a  scientific  reading  of  the 
meaning  of  certain  phases  of  the  history  of  the 
race  as  they  can  be  studied.  I  would  be  the 
last  in  the  world  to  think  that  I  could  influence 
present-day  activities  by  any  such  indications  of 
a  great  law  in  the  history  of  the  race  that  takes 
three  centuries  from  phase  to  phase.  After  all, 
who  cares  for  a  law  that  does  not  affect  our  gen- 
eration, but  at  most  the  third  and  fourth  succeed- 
ing generations,  and  the  manifestation  of  whose 
phenomena  can  only  be  recognized  in  three-century 
periods  ? 

What  I  have  tried  to  do  is  to  point  out  just 
what  are  the  C3^cles  of  feminine  influence  and 
education  in  the  world's  history,  and  then  to 
work  out  the  reasons  why,  quite  contrary  to  what 
might  be  expected,  these  phases  have  not  con- 
tinued, but  are  interrupted  by  periods  of  ulter 
decadence  of  feminine  influence  or  interest  in 
public  life  and  education.  Perhaps  in  our  time 
we  are  going  to  change  all  that.  That  is  the 
feeling  that  we  are  prone  to  have.  Others  may 
have  made   progress   and   forgotten   about   it,   or 


268    FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE 

may  have  made  mistakes  and  been  eliminated 
for  them,  but  we  are  so  consciously  active  in  our 
affairs  that  we  cannot  think  of  ourselves  as  likely 
to  suffer  the  fate  of  our  predecessors.  There  is 
much  of  that  feeling  abroad  in  the  present  day, 
there  has  always  been  much  of  that  feeling  abroad 
in  every  other  day,  for  each  succeeding  genera- 
tion in  its  turn  is  perfectly  sure  that  what  it  is 
doing  means  more  than  ever  before,  though  it  can 
see  very  clearly  the  mistakes  made  by  its  pred- 
ecessors. It  is  somewhat  like  our  feeling  to- 
wards other  persons  and  their  accomplishments  in 
life  as  compared  to  our  own.  Most  of  us  are 
quite  sure  that  whatever  we  are  doing  is  quite 
significant,  though  we  can  see  plainly  that  what 
most  of  our  friends  are  doing,  or  are  trying  to  do, 
is  altogether  trivial  and  insignificant. 

In  recent  years  we  have  come  to  realize  more 
and  more  how  much  history  needs  to  be  studied 
in  the  light  of  biology.  The  decadence  of  Greece 
was  probably  due,  to  a  great  extent,  to  the  bring- 
ing back  by  Alexander's  conquering  soldiers  of 
malaria  from  the  Orient,  and  thus  the  vanquished 
proved  the  ruin  of  their  conquerors.  The  great 
plagues  of  the  olden  time  which  sometimes  car- 
ried away  nearly  one-half  the  human  race  in  a 
single  visitation,  were  due  to  insect  pests  of  vari- 
ous kinds,  which  all  unknown  to  men  conveyed  the 
disease  and  diffused  it  widely.  It  will  not  be 
easy  always  to  read  the  lessons  of  biology  in  his- 
tory  aright.     Whether   I  have   done  so  for  you 


FEMININE  EDUCATION  AND  INFLUENCE    269 

or  not,  in  this  matter  of  the  history  of  feminism, 
I  cannot  tell.  The  story,  however,  has  been  in- 
teresting to  work  out,  and  I  do  not  think  that 
its  conclusions  have  ever  been  presented  to  the 
public  in  quite  this  form  before.  They  are  now 
presented  not  with  the  idea  that  they  should  be 
accepted  as  absolute,  but  for  the  criticism  and 
consideration  of  those  who  are  most  vitally  inter- 
ested and  who  want  to  know  all  that  can  be 
known  about  the  conditions  surrounding  woman's 
influence  in  the  world  and  her  place  for  good  in 
the  history  of  the  race. 


THE  CHURCH  AND  FEMININE 
EDUCATION 


"  It  is  your  duty  to  see  that  your  daughter  loves  study 
and  work,  securing  this  by  the  promise  of  rewards  or  some 
other  means  of  emulation.  Above  all  you  must  take  care 
not  to  give  her  disgust  for  study  for  fear  that  this  may 
continue  as  she  grows  older.  Let  her  not  learn  in  her 
childhood  what  she  should  unlearn  later  in  life." — Letter  of 
St.  Jerome  to  Leta,  the  wife  of  Toxolus,  the  son  of  St. 
Paula. 

"  The  sum  of  education  is  right  training  in  the  nursery. 
The  soul  of  the  child  in  his  play  should  be  trained  to  that 
sort  of  excellence  in  which,  when  he  grows  up  to  man- 
hood, he  will  have  to  be  perfected." — Plato,  Laws 
(Jowett),  Vol.   IV,  p.   174.      Scribner,   1902. 

"  The  minds  of  children  are  most  of  all  influenced  bji 
the  training  they  receive  at  home." — Pope  Leo  XIII. 


THE  CHURCH  AND  FEMININE 
EDUCATION  * 

Lady  Bachelors:  I  have  had  frequent  occa- 
sions to  address  all  sorts  of  bachelors  on  their 
graduation,  of  science  and  arts  and  letters  and 
pedagogy,  but  this  is  my  first  opportunity  to 
address  ladies  crowned,  at  least  symbolically,  with 
the  laurel  berries  of  the  bachelorhood  in  art.  We 
are  apt  to  think  of  young  ladies  rather  as  masters 
of  arts  innumerable,  and  as  needing  no  degree  to 
attest  their  abilities.  While  I  am  glad,  indeed,  to 
address  you  as  lady  bachelors  I  do  so  with  the 
fondest  hope  that  you  ^vill  all  proceed  to  further 
degrees  either  academic  or  domestic  and  not  re- 
main in  that  nondescript  class  of  bachelor-maids. 

I  should  like  to  be  able  to  tell  you  how  much 
pleasure  it  gives  me  to  have  the  privilege  of 
addressing  you  on  this  Fiftieth  Anniversary  of 
the  Foundation  of  St.  Elizabeth's.  There  is  an 
apt  illustration  of  the  Communion  of  Saints  in 
your  title  as  a  college.  Founded  in  honor  of  that 
noble,  saintly  American  woman,  Elizabeth  Seton, 

*  The  material  for  this  address  was  gathered  originally  for  the 
normal  courses  on  the  History  of  Education  for  many  of  the  teaching 
sisterhoods  in  this  country.  In  its  present  form  it  was  the  address  to 
the  graduates  of  St.  Elizabeth's  College,  Convent  Station,  N.  J.,  on 
the  occasion  of  the  celebration  of  the  jubilee  of  the  foundation  of  its 
teaching  work. 

273 


274    CHURCH  AND  FEMININE  EDUCATION 

and  yet  called  particularly  after  that  Saint  Eliza- 
beth whom  the  Mother  of  the  Lord  set  out  to 
visit  as  the  first  act  of  her  Motherhood  of  the 
Church,  there  always  rises  in  my  mind  besides,  the 
thought  of  that  other  Saint  Elizabeth  whom  the 
Germans  delight  to  call  the  dear  Saint  Elizabeth, 
who,  though  she  died  when  she  was  scarcely 
twenty-four,  has  left  a  name  undying  in  the  an- 
nals of  helpfulness  for  others. 

This  St.  Elizabeth,  whose  name  I  recall  with 
special  willingness  now  that  I  see  you  ready  to 
go  out  to  do  your  world's  work,  lived  in  the 
midst  of  what  has  been  until  quite  recent  years 
the  despised  Middle  Ages,  oiit  of  which  as  little 
good  might  be  expected  as  out  of  Nazareth  in  the 
olden  time,  yet  she  so  stamped  her  personality  on 
the  ^orld  of  her  day  that  now  the  after-time, 
neglectful,  as  a  rule,  of  the  individual,  so  careless 
even  of  the  world's  (supposed)  great  ones,  will  not 
willingly  let  her  name  die.  She  is  still  with  us 
as  a  great  living  force.  They  read  a  sketch  of 
her  life,  I  have  heard,  at  the  meeting  of  the 
Neighborhood  House  in  New  York  within  the 
last  few  months,  as  an  incentive  to  that  devotion 
to  the  needy  that  characterized  her.  She  was  a 
woman  who  thought  not  at  all  of  herself,  but  all 
of  others.  As  a  consequence,  mankind  in  its  bet- 
ter moods  has  never  ceased  to  turn  to  her.  Evi- 
dently the  formula  for  being  remembered  is  to 
forget  yourself.  I  am,  sure,  however,  that  that 
has  been  brought  home  to  you  so  well  during  your 


CHURCH  AND  FEMININE  EDUCATION    275 

years  at  St.  Elizabeth's  that  it  would,  indeed,  be 
bringing  coals  to  Newcastle  for  me  to  say  any- 
thing about  it  in  the  few  minutes  I  have  to  talk  to 
you. 

What  I  have  chosen  to  say  to  you  refers  to  that 
higher  Catholic  education  for  women  of  which 
you  are  now  going  out  as  the  representatives.  I 
do  it  all  the  more  readily  because,  through  the 
kindness  of  your  beloved  teachers,  I  have  had 
the  privilege  of  co-operating  a  little  in  that 
education,  for  I  appreciate  that  privilege  very 
much. 

Apparently  a  good  many  people  cherish  the 
idea  that  the  Catholic  Church  is  opposed  to 
feminine  education,  or  at  least  to  the  higher  edu- 
cation of  women  as  we  know  it  now,  and  that  in 
the  past  her  influence  has  been  constantly  and 
consistently  exerted  against  any  development  of 
this  phase  of  human  accomplishment.  In  the 
liturgy  of  the  Church  women  are  usually  spoken 
of  as  the  devout  female  sex,  and  it  is  supposed 
that  the  one  effort  of  the  Church  itself,  the  un- 
erring purpose  of  ecclesiastical  authorities,  was  to 
prevent  women  from  becoming  learned  lest  they 
should  lose  something  of  their  devoutness.  Ap- 
parently it  is  forgotten  that  some  of  the  greatest 
devotees  in  the  Church,  the  saintly  women  who 
were  held  up  to  the  admiration  and  emulation  of 
their  sisters  in  the  after-time,  women  like  St. 
Catherine  of  Sienna,  St.  Angela  Merici,  St.  Jane 
Frances  De  Chantal  and,  above  all,  St.  Teresa, 


276    CHURCH  AND  FEMININE  EDUCATION 

were  eminently  intellectual  women  as  well  as 
models  of  devotion. 

This  same  idea  as  to  the  Church  deliberately 
fostering  ignorance  has  been  quite  common  in  the 
writings  of  certain  types  of  historians  with  re- 
gard to  other  departments  of  education,  and  those 
of  us  who  are  interested  in  the  history  of  medi- 
cine have  been  rather  surprised  to  be  told  that, 
because  the  Church  wanted  to  keep  people  in 
readiness  to  look  to  Masses  and  prayers  and  relics 
and  shrines  for  the  cure  of  their  ailments, — and, 
of  course,  pay  for  the  privilege  of  taking  advan- 
tage of  these, — the  development  of  medicine  was 
discouraged,  the  people  were  kept  in  ignorance 
and  all  progress  in  scientific  knowledge  was  ham- 
pered. It  is,  indeed,  amusing  to  hear  this  when 
one  knows  that  for  seven  centuries  the  greatest 
contributors  to  medical  science  have  been  the 
Papal  physicians,  deliberately  called  to  Rome, 
many  of  them,  because  they  were  the  great  medi- 
cal scientists  of  their  day,  and  the  Popes  would 
have  no  others  near.  For  centuries  the  Papal 
Medical  School  was  the  finest  in  the  world  for 
the  original  research  done  there,  and  Bologna  at 
the  height  of  its  fame  was  in  the  Papal  States. 

With  so  many  other  presumptions  with  regard 
to  the  position  of  the  Church  towards  education, 
it  is  not  surprising  that  there  should  be  a  com- 
plete misunderstanding  of  her  attitude  toward 
feminine  education,  an  absolute  ignoring  of  the 
realities  of  the  history  of  education,  which  show 


CHURCH  AND  FEMININE  EDUCATION    277 

exactly  the  opposite  of  anything  like  opposition 
to  be  true.  I  have  had  a  good  deal  to  do  in 
laboring  at  least  to  correct  many  false  ideas  with 
regard  to  the  history  of  education,  and,  above  all, 
with  what  concerns  supposed  Church  opposition 
to  various  phases  of  educational  advance.  I  know 
no  presumption  of  opposition  on  the  part  of  the 
Church  to  education  that  is  so  groundless,  how- 
ever, as  that  which  would  insist  that  it  is  onlj'' 
now  with  what  people  are  pleased  to  call  the 
breaking  up  of  Church  influence  generally,  so 
that  even  the.  Catholic  Church  has  to  bow,  though 
unwillingly,  to  the  spirit  of  the  times  and  to 
modern  progress,  that  feminine  education  is  re- 
ceiving its  due  share  of  attention.  IVIost  people 
seem  to  be  quite  sure  that  the  first  serious  de- 
velopment of  opportunities  for  the  higher  educa- 
tion of  women  came  in  our  time.  They  presume 
that  never  before  has  there  been  anything  worth 
while  talking  about  in  this  matter.  Just  inasmuch 
as  they  do  they  are  completely  perverting  the 
realities  of  the  history  of  education,  which  are  in 
this  matter  particularly  interesting  and  by  no 
means  lacking  in  detail. 

Whenever  there  is  any  question  of  Church  in- 
fluence in  education,  or  of  the  spirit  of  the  Church 
with  regard  to  education,  those  who  wish  to  talk 
knowingly  of  the  subject  should  turn  to  the 
period  in  which  the  Church  was  a  predominant 
factor  in  human  affairs  throughout  Europe.  This 
is,  as  is  well  known,  the  thirteenth  centurj\     The 


278    CHURCH  AND  FEMININE  EDUCATION 

Pope  who  was  on  the  throne  at  the  beginning  of 
this  century,  Innocent  III,  is  famous  in  history 
for  ha\dng  set  down  kings  from  their  thrones, 
dictated  many  modifications  of  poHtical  pohcy 
to  the  countries  of  Europe  whenever  secular 
governments  were  violating  certain  great  prin- 
ciples of  justice,  and  in  general,  was  looked  up  to 
as  the  most  powerful  of  rulers  in  temporal  as 
well  as  in  spiritual  affairs.  A  typical  example  of 
the  place  •  occupied  by  the  Church  is  to  be  seen 
when  Philip  Augustus  of  France  repudiated  his 
lawful  wife  to  marry  another.  Pope  Innocent 
set  himself  sternly  against  the  injustice,  and  the 
proud  French  King,  at  the  time  one  of  the  most 
powerful  sovereigns  of  Europe,  had  to  take  back 
the  neglected  wife  from  the  Scandinavian  coun- 
tries, the  distance  and  weakness  of  whose  relatives 
would  seem  to  make  it  so  easy  for  a  determined 
monarch  to  put  her  aside.  When  King  John  in 
England  violated  the  rights  of  his  people,  Inno- 
cent put  the  country  under  an  Interdict,  released 
John's  subjects  from  their  allegiance  and  promptly 
brought  the  shifty  Plantagenet  to  terms.  The 
Pope  at  the  end  of  the  centurj%  the  great  Boni- 
face VIII,  was  scarce^  less  assertive  of  the  rights 
of  the  Church  and  of  the  Papacy  than  the  first  of 
the  thirteenth-century  Pontiffs.  While  he  was 
not  so  successful  as  his  great  predecessor  in  main- 
taining his  rights,  the  policy  of  the  Church  evi- 
dently had  not  changed.  Most  of  the  Popes  of 
the  interval  wielded  an  immense  influence  for  good 


CHURCH  AND  FEMININE  EDUCATION    279 

that  was  felt  in  every  sphere  of  Hfe  in  Europe 
in  their  time. 

Now  it  is  with  regard  to  this  period  that  it  is 
fair  to  ask  the  question,  What  was  the  attitude  of 
the  Church  toward  education?  Owing  to  her  ac- 
knowledged supremacj^  in  spiritual  matters  and 
the  extension  of  the  spiritual  authority  even  over 
the  temporal  authorities  whenever  the  essential 
principles  of  ethics  or  any  question  of  morals  was 
concerned,  the  Church  could  absolutely  dictate  the 
educational  policy  of  Europe.  Now,  this  is  the 
centur\"  when  the  universities  arose  and  received 
their  most  magnificent  development.  The  great 
Lateran  Council,  held  at  the  beginning  of  the 
century,  required  every  bishop  to  establish  pro- 
fessorships equivalent  to  what  we  now  call  a  col- 
lege in  connection  with  his  cathedral.  The  metro- 
politan archbishops  were  expected  to  develop  uni- 
versity courses  in  connection  with  their  colleges. 
Everywhere,  then,  in  Europe  universities  arose, 
and  there  was  the  liveliest  appreciation  and  the 
most  ardent  enthusiasm  for  education,  so  that  not 
only  were  ample  opportunities  provided,  but  these 
were  taken  gloriously  and  the  culture  of  modern 
Europe  awoke  and  bloomed  wonderfully. 

Some  idea  of  the  extension  of  university  op- 
portunities can  be  judged  from  the  fact  that, 
according  to  the  best  and  most  conservative 
statistics  available,  there  were  more  students  at  the 
universities  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge  to  the  popu- 
lation of  the  England  of  that  day,  than  there  are 


280    CHURCH  AND  FEMININE  EDUCATION 

to  the  population  of  even  such  an  educationally 
well  provided  city  as  Greater  New  York  in  the 
present  year  of  grace  1910.  This  seems  astound- 
ing to  our  modern  ideas,  but  it  is  absolutely  true 
if  there  is  any  truth  in  history.  The  statistics 
are  provided  by  men  who  are  not  at  all  favorable 
to  Catholic  education  or  the  Church's  influence 
for  education.  At  this  same  time  there  were 
probably  more  than  1-5,000  students  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  Bologna,  and  almost  beyond  a  doubt 
20,000  at  the  University  of  Paris.  We  have  not 
reached  such  figures  for  university  attendance 
again,  even  down  to  the  present.  Students  came 
from  all  over  the  world  to  these  universities,  but 
more  than  twenty  other  universities  were  founded 
throughout  Europe  in  this  century.  The  popula- 
tion was  very  scanty  compared  to  what  it  is  at 
the  present  time;  there  were  probably  not  more 
than  25,000,000  of  people  on  the  whole  continent. 
England  had  less  than  3,000,000  of  people  and, 
as  we  know  very  well  by  the  census  made  before 
the  coming  of  the  Armada,  had  only  slightly  more 
than  4,000,000  even  in  Elizabeth's  time,  some  two 
centuries  later. 

Here  is  abundant  evidence  of  the  attitude  of  the 
Church  towards  education.  Now  comes  the  ques- 
tion for  us.  What  about  feminine  education  at  the 
time  of  this  great  new  awakening  of  educational 
purpose  throughout  Europe?  If  we  can  find  no 
trace  of  it,  then  are  we  justified  in  saying  that 
if  the  Church  did  not  oppose,  at  least  she  did  not 


CHURCH  AND  FEMININE  EDUCATION    281 

favor  the  higher  education  for  women.  Let  us  see 
what  we  find.  The  first  university  in  our  modern 
sense  of  the  word  came  into  existence  down  at 
Salerno  around  the  great  medical  school  which 
had  existed  there  for  several  centuries.  Prob- 
ably the  most  interesting  feature  of  the  teaching 
at  Salerno  is  the  fact  that  the  department  of  the 
diseases  of  women  in  the  great  medical  school  was 
in  charge  of  women  professors  for  several  cen- 
turies, and  we  have  the  books  they  wrote  on  this 
subject,  and  know  much  of  the  position  they  occu- 
pied. The  most  distinguished  of  them,  Trotula, 
left  us  a  text-book  on  her  subject  which  con- 
tained many  interesting  details  of  the  medicine 
of  the  period,  and  we  know  of  her  that  she  was 
the  wife  of  one  professor  of  medicine  at  Salerno 
and  the  mother  of  another.  She  was  the  foundress 
of  what  was  called  the  school  of  Salernitan  women 
physicians,  using  the  word  school  in  the  same 
sense  in  which  it  is  employed  when  we  talk  of  a 
school  of  painters. 

This  is  all  the  more  interesting  because  the 
University  of  Salerno  was  mainly  under  monastic 
influence.  Originally  the  schools  in  connection 
with  the  school  of  medicine  were  founded  from 
the  great  Benedictine  monastery  of  Monte  Cassino 
not  far  away.  The  first  great  teacher  of  medi- 
cine at  Salerno,  Constantine  Africanus,  whose 
influence  was  dominant  in  his  own  time  and  con- 
tinued afterwards  through  his  writings,  became  a 
Benedictine  monk  in  his  early  middle  age.     The 


282    CHURCH  AND  FEMININE  EDUCATION 

preparatory  schools  for  the  medical  courses  at 
Salerno  were  largely  in  the  hands  of  the  Bene- 
dictines. The  university  itself  was  under  the 
influence  of  the  Archbishop  of  Salerno  more  than 
any  other,  and  the  one  who  did  most  for  it,  the 
great  Alphanus,  had  been  a  Benedictine  monk. 
Ordinarily  this  would  be  presumed  to  preclude 
any  possibility  of  the  development  of  a  great 
phase  of  education  for  women,  and  especially  pro- 
fessional education  for  women  at  the  University 
of  Salerno.  Just  the  contrary  happened.  The 
wise  monks,  who  knew  human  life  and  appreciated 
its  difliculties,  recognized  the  necessity,  or  at  least 
the  advisability,  for  women  as  medical  attendants 
on  women  and  children,  and  so  the  first  great 
modern  school  of  medicine,  mainly  under  monastic 
influence,  had  the  department  of  women's  dis- 
eases in  the  hands  of  women  themselves. 

In  Naples  women  were  allowed  to  practise 
medicine,  and  we  have  some  of  the  licenses  which 
show  the  formal  permission  granted  by  the  gov- 
ernment in  this  matter.  An  almost  exactly  simi- 
lar state  of  affairs  to  that  thus  seen  at  Salerno 
developed  at  Bologna,  only  there  the  university 
was  founded  round  the  law  school,  and  the  first 
women  students  were  in  that  school.  When 
Irnerius  established  his  great  lectureship  of  Ro- 
man Law  at  Bologna,  to  which  students  were 
attracted  from  all  over  Europe,  he  seems  to  have 
seen  no  objection  to  allow  women  to  attend  his 
courses,  and  we  have  the  names  of  his  daughter 


CHURCH  AND  FEMININE  EDUCATION    283 

and  several  other  women  who  reached  distinction 
in  the  law  school.  As  the  other  departments  of 
the  University  of  Bologna  developed  we  find 
women  as  students  and  teachers  in  these.  One 
of  the  assistants  to  the  first  great  professor  of 
anatomy  at  Bologna,  Mondino,  whose  text-book 
of  anatomy  was  used  in  the  schools  for  two  cen- 
turies after  this  time,  was  a  young  woman,  Ales- 
sandra  Giliani.  It  is  to  her  that  we  owe  an  early 
method  for  the  injection  of  bodies  in  such  a  way 
as  to  preserve  them,  and  she  also  varnished  and 
colored  them  so  that  the  deterrent  work  of  dis- 
section would  not  have  to  be  carried  on  to  such  an 
extent  as  before,  yet  the  actual  human  tissues 
might  be  used  for  demonstrating  purposes. 

As  the  result  of  the  traditions  in  feminine 
education  thus  established  women  continued  to 
enjoy  abundant  opportunities  at  the  universities 
of  Italy,  and  there  is  not  a  single  century  since 
the  thirteenth  when  there  have  not  been  some  dis- 
tinguished women  professors  at  the  Italian  uni- 
versities. Nearly  five  centuries  after  the  youth- 
ful assistant  in  anatomy  of  whom  we  have  spoken, 
whose  invention  meant  so  much  for  making  the 
study  of  medicine  less  deterrent  and  dangerous, 
came  Madame  Manzolini,  who  invented  the  method 
of  making  wax  models  of  human  tissues  so  that 
these  might  be  studied  for  anatomical  purposes. 
Made  in  the  natural  colors,  these  were  eminently 
helpful.  In  the  meantime  many  women  pro- 
fessors of  many  subjects  had  come  and  gone  at 


284    CHURCH  AND  FEMININE  EDUCATION 

the  Italian  universities.  In  the  thirteenth  century 
there  was  a  great  teacher  of  mathematics  who  was 
so  young  and  handsome  that,  in  order  not  to  dis- 
turb the  minds  of  her  students,  she  lectured  from 
behind  a  curtain.  It  is  evident  that  the  educated 
women  of  the  Middle  Ages  could  be  as  modest  as 
they  were  intelligent  and  thoughtful  of  others, 
quite  as  much  as  if  they  had  devoted  their  lives 
to  gentle  charity  and  not  to  the  higher  education. 
Women  physicians,  educators,  mathematicians, 
professors  of  literature,  astronomers,  all  these  are 
to  be  found  at  the  universities  of  Italy  while  the 
Church  and  the  ecclesiastics  were  the  dominating 
influences  in  these  universities. 

Unfortunately  the  spread  of  this  feminine  edu- 
cational movement  from  Italy  to  the  west  of  Eu- 
rope was  disturbed  by  the  Heloise  and  Abelard 
incident  at  the  University  of  Paris,  and  as  all  the 
western  universities  owe  their  origin  to  Paris, 
they  took  the  tradition  created  there  after  Abe- 
lard's  time,  that  women  should  not  be  allowed  to 
enter  the  university.  When,  however,  three  cen- 
turies later,  the  Renaissance  brought  in  the  new 
learning,  the  schools  of  humanism  independent  of 
the  universities  admitted  women  on  absolute  terms 
of  equality  with  men,  and  some  of  the  women 
became  the  distinguished  scholars  of  the  time. 
The  Church's  influence  is  plainly  to  be  seen  in 
this,  and  the  women  took  part  in  plays  given  in 
Greek  and  classic  Latin  before  the  cardinals  and 
prominent  ecclesiastics,  and  everywhere  the  feel- 


CHURCH  AND  FEMININE  EDUCATION    285 

ing  developed  that,  if  women  wanted  to  have  the 
higher  education  of  the  humanities  or,  as  it  was 
then  called,  the  New  Learning,  they  should  have 
it.  This  feminine  educational  movement  spread 
all  over  Europe.  Anne  of  Bretagne  organized  a 
school  at  the  French  Court  for  the  women  of  the 
court,  and  such  women  as  JNIary  Queen  of  Scots, 
Margaret  of  Navarre,  Renee  of  Anjou,  Louise 
La  Cordiere  are  a  few  of  the  French  women  of 
the  Renaissance  who  attained  distinction  for 
broad  culture  and  education  at  this  time. 

Spain,  too,  had  its  women  of  the  Renaissance. 
One  of  the  first  of  them  was  Isabella  of  Castile, 
whose  assistance  to  Columbus  was  no  mere  acci- 
dent, nor  due  so  much  to  personal  influence  ex- 
erted on  her,  as  to  her  own  broad  interest  in  the 
things  of  the  mind  in  her  time.  Her  daughter 
Catherine,  who  became  Queen  of  England,  was 
deeply  educated,  while  her  daughter.  Queen  Mary 
of  England,  knew  the  classics  and  especially 
Latin  very  well.  During  her  time  in  England 
many  of  the  nobility  of  the  higher  classes  were  dis- 
tinguished for  education.  Lady  Jane  Grey  pre- 
ferred to  study  Greek  to  going  to  balls  and  routs, 
and  sacrificed  hunting  parties  for  her  lessons  un- 
der Roger  Ascham,  in  the  great  Greek  authors. 
Queen  Elizabeth  knew  Greek  and  Latin  very  well. 
The  famous  Countess  of  Arundell  at  this  time 
was  ,  a  distinguished  scholar.  Margaret  More  is 
a  bright  example  of  .opportunities  for  the  higher 
education  given  and  taken  in  the  lower  classes  of 


286   CHURCH  AND  FEMININE  EDUCATION 

the  nobility  of  the  England  of  her  time.  One 
thing  we  can  be  sure  of  in  the  England  of  that 
time,  if  the  Queen  and  the  highest  nobility  were 
interested  in  education  and  devoted  their  time  to 
it  so  sedulously  and  successfully,  then  without 
doubt  those  beneath  them  in  rank  did  so  like- 
wise. The  upper  classes  are  not  alone  imitated  in 
things  unworthy,  but  also  in  what  is  best  if  they 
only  provide  the  good  example. 

To  any  one  who  knows  the  history  of  the 
Church,  however,  these  incidents  in  feminine  edu- 
cation will  not  be  surprising.  Every  time,  as  a 
rule,  that  there  has  been  a  great 'new  awakening 
in  education,  women,  too,  have  demanded  the 
right  to  have  their  share  in  it,  and  the  Church, 
far  from  discouraging,  has  always  helped  to  pro- 
vide educational  opportunities.  When  in  the 
ninth  century  Charlemagne  reorganized  the  edu- 
cation of  Europe,  or,  at  least,  reinstituted  it  for 
his  people,  the  women  of  the  Palace  had  their  op- 
portunities to  attend  the  Palace  school  as  well  as 
the  men.  That  Palace  school  was  a  very  wonder- 
ful travelling  university,  wandering  wherever  the 
Court  went.  It  was  at  Aix,  it  was  probably  at 
Paris  for  a  time;  when  Charlemagne  went  down 
to  Italy  it  went  with  him  and  seems  to  have  held 
some  sessions  even  while  he  was  in  Rome;  there 
is  a  tradition  of  its  existence  while  he  stayed  one 
winter  in  Verona.  Though  the  teachers  in  it 
were  monks,  for  Charlemagne  and  Alfred,  the 
great,  broad-minded  rulers,  who  did  so  much  for 


CHURCH  AND  FEMININE  EDUCATION    287 

their  people,  had  no  illusions  about  the  high  place 
that  the  monks  held  in  life  in  their  time,  women 
were  taught  at  the  schools  as  well  as  men.  Char- 
lemagne and  Alfred  were  in  the  best  possible  posi- 
tion to  know  who  were  the  best  teachers  in  their 
time,  and  they  turned  with  confidence  to  the 
monks.  People  generally,  and,  above  all,  their 
great  rulers,  knew  nothing  of  the  condemnation 
of  the  monks  in  the  Dark  Ages  which  came  a 
thousand  j^ears  after  their  time,  from  people  who 
knew  nothing  about  them  and  who  had  even  less 
sympathy  with  them.  They  both  knew  them  and 
sympathized  with  all  they  were  doing,  therefore 
their  cordial  encouragement  of  them.  Their  atti- 
tude was  eminently  justified  by  the  fact  that  the 
monks  were  broad  enough,  in  spite  of  their  mo- 
nastic habits  and  their  supposed  lack  of  apprecia- 
tion for  women,  to  take  up  to  a  great  extent  even 
the  teaching  of  women.  There  are  letters  from 
the  women  of  the  court  of  Charlemagne  written 
to  Alcuin  and  to  other  teachers  of  the  time,  which 
show  how  interested  were  the  women  in  the  school 
work. 

This  is  not  surprising  if  we  recall  that,  when 
Benedict  founded  the  monks  of  the  west,  who 
were  to  provide  the  homes  where  culture  was  to 
be  maintained  and  the  classics  preserved  for  us 
and  education  gradually  diffused,  his  sister  St. 
Scholastica  did  the  same  thing  for  the  women  as 
her  brother  was  doing  for  the  men.  Any  one  who 
knows  the  story  of  the  Benedictine  convents  for 


288    CHURCH  AND  FEMININE  EDUCATION 

women  and  the  books  there  produced,  plays, 
stories,  even  works  on  medicine  and  other  sci- 
ences, will  realize  how  much  was  accomplished 
for  the  higher  education  of  women  in  these  in- 
stitutions in  unpromising  times.  The  women  who 
wanted  to  follow  the  intellectual  life  were  given 
the  opportunity  and  many  of  them  did  excellent 
work.  Within  the  last  year  I  have  written  and 
published  sketches  of  the  lives  of  St.  Hildegarde, 
who  wrote  books  on  medicine  in  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury, and  of  Hroswitha,  the  nun  of  Gandersheim, 
who  wrote  Latin  comedies  in  imitation  of  Terence 
in  the  tenth  century.  These  serious  literary  and 
scientific  writings  by  women  in  what  is  usually 
presumed  to  be  the  darkest  period  of  the  so-called 
Dark  Ages,  and  preserved  for  us  out  of  the  wreck 
and  ruin  that  came  down  on  nearly  everything 
produced  in  those  times,  shows  us  very  clearly  how 
much  more  than  we  have  been  accustomed  to  think 
these  women  of  the  jNIiddle  Ages  were  interested 
in  the  intellectual  life.  Books  are  written  only 
when  there  are  readers  and  appreciation  for  them, 
and  the  interest  of  contemporaries  and  the  hope  of 
future  interest  as  an  incentive. 

Of  course,  even  before  the  foundation  of  the 
Benedictines  we  have  a  great  living  example  of  the 
encouragement  of  the  Church  for  the  higher  edu- 
cation of  women.  It  came  at  a  time  and  under 
circumstances  that  furnish  abundant  evidence  of 
how  much  the  Church  appreciates  and  is  ready  to 
encourage  education  and  how  precious  she  realizes 


CHURCH  AND  FEMININE  EDUCATION    289 

it  is  for  her  children.  When  the  first  nation  was 
converted  as  a  whole  to  Christianity,  when  the 
Irish  people  came  over  under  the  Apostolic  Pat- 
rick's wonderful  missionary  zeal,  the  first  thing 
that  was  done  in  this  first  Christian  nation  was  to 
found  schools.  Ireland  became  the  Island  of 
Saints  and  of  Scholars.  While  the  barbarians 
had  overrun  Europe  and  destroyed  the  schools 
there,  Ireland  became  the  home  of  the  best  teach- 
ers in  the  world  and  men  flocked  to  her  from  all 
over   Europe. 

These  schools,  however,  were  not  reserved  for. 
the  men,  but  abundant  opportunities  were  also  af- 
forded women  for  scholarship  and  for  culture  of 
everj'^  kind.  Only  second  in  importance  to  St. 
Patrick's  great  school  at  Armagh  during  the 
first  century  in  the  history  of  Ireland  as  a  Chris- 
tian nation  was  St.  Brigid's  school  at  Kildare. 
We  know  from  Giraldus  Cambrensis,  now  better 
known  as  Gerald  the  Welshman,  that,  in  his 
travels  in  Ireland  centuries  afterwards,  but  before 
the  destruction  of  Kildare,  he  saw  many  wonder- 
ful evidences  of  the  intellectual  life  of  that  in- 
stitution. Above  all,  he  saw  a  famous  copy  of 
the  Holy  Scripture  so  beautifully  illuminated  that 
he  thought  it  the  finest  book  in  the  world.  His 
description  would  show  us  that  if  this  copy  of 
the  Scriptures  which  Gerald  saw  was  not  the 
book  of  Kells  as  some  have  ventured  to  suggest, 
it  was  at  least  a  copy  not  unlike  that  famous 
illuminated   volume  which  is,   perhaps,   the  most 


290    CHURCH  AND  FEMININE  EDUCATION 

beautiful  book  that  ever  came  from  the  hand  of 
man.  The  arts  and  the  crafts  evidently  were 
studied  and  practised  as  well  as  book-learning  at 
Kildare,  and  Brigid's  influence  brought  to  her  at 
her  college  of  Kildare,  literally  thousands  of  the 
daughters  of  the  nobility  of  Ireland,  of  England 
and  of  portions  of  the  Continent,  attracted  by 
her  sanctity  and  her  scholarship  and  the  wonder- 
ful intellectual  and  artistic  work  that  was  being 
accomplished    there. 

With  these  facts  in  mind  it  is  easy  to  see  that 
the  Church,  far  from  opposing  in  any  way  the 
higher  education  for  women,  has  not  only  en- 
couraged but  actually  patronized  it  whenever 
there  is  a  demand  for  it  on  the  part  of  any  genera- 
tion in  history.  Feminine  education  comes  and 
goes,  so  though  in  less  markedly  cyclical  fashion 
does  masculine  education.  Just  what  the  law 
behind  these  cycles  is  we  do  not  know  as  yet.  One 
thing  is  sure,  now  that  another  cycle  of  interest 
has  come  to  feminine  education  in  the  world,  the 
Church  is  not  only  willing  but  anxious  to  give  her 
children' the  benefit  of  it,  and  the  growth  of  the 
higher  education  among  Catholics  for  Catholic 
young  women  in  America  in  the  last  decade  is 
the  best  evidence  of  this.  Our  teaching  Sister- 
hoods in  this  country  have  nobly  lifted  themselves 
up  to  the  occasion  demanded,  and  we  may  well 
be  proud  of  our  Catholic  colleges  for  women. 
Personally  I  know  what  is  being  done  at  some 
half  a  dozen  of  them,  and  I  have  no  hesitation 


CHURCH  AND  FEMININE  EDUCATION    291 

in  saying  that  they  are  giving  a  better,  solider, 
though  perhaps,  a  less  showy  education  than  their 
secular  rivals.  Of  your  work  at  St.  Elizabeth's 
I  have  had  such  personal  information  as  makes 
me  realize  how  thorough  are  the  efforts  to  pro- 
vide every  possible  opportunity  for  higher  femi- 
nine education  and  how  successful  they  are. 

Only  less  absurd  than  the  notion  that  the 
Church  is  in  any  way  opposed  to  feminine  educa- 
tion is  the  thought  that  seems  to  be  in  many  peo- 
ple's minds  in  our  day,  that  the  Church  would 
prefer  to  keep  woman  in  the  background  and 
does  not  want  her  to  do  great  influential  things 
when  those  are  demanded  of  her.  The  feeling 
seems  to  be  that  only  modern  evolution  has 
brought  such  opportunities  for  women  to  exert 
the  precious  humanitarian  influence  that  is  some- 
times possible  for  her.  How  much  those  who  talk 
thus  forget  the  history  of  the  Church  if  they  ever 
knew  it,  but  also  of  feminine  influence  in  the 
world,  is  very  clear  from  even  a  short  resume  of 
feminine  achievements  in  Christian  times.  When- 
ever there  has  been  a  great  movement  in  the 
Church  that  meant  much  for  the  men  and  women 
of  a  time,  beside  the  man  who  initiated  it,  if  she 
was  not,  indeed,  the  initiator  herself,  stood  a 
great  woman  only  a  little  less  significant  in  in- 
fluence, as  a  rule,  and  sometimes  even  greater 
than  he.  In  the  conversion  of  the  first  people  to 
Christianity,  beside  St.  Patrick  stood  St.  Brigid. 
In  the  foundation  of  the  monks  of  the  west  that 


292    CHURCH  AND  FEMININE  EDUCATION 

great  institution  that  meant  so  much  for  the 
Church  and  for  Europe,  beside  St.  Benedict 
stood  St.  Scholastica,  his  sister,  doing  and  organiz- 
ing for  the  women  of  her  time  and  succeeding 
generations,  what  her  brother  did  for  the  men. 
When,  in  the  newer  dispensation  of  the  founda- 
tion of  the  Mendicant  ReHgious  Orders,  St. 
Francis  came  to  bring  a  great  new  message  to 
the  world,  beside  him  and  only  a  little  less  in- 
fluential than  he  in  his  lifetime,  and  saving  his 
work  for  its  genuine  mission  after  his  death,  came 
St.  Clare.  When  the  tide  of  the  religious  revolt 
spreading  down  from  Germany,  was  pushed  back 
in  Spain,  beside  St.  Teresa,  for  here  the  greater 
protagonist  of  the  movement  was  a  woman,  stood 
St.  John  of  God.  When  St.  Francis  De  Sales 
came  to  do  his  great  work  for  education  and  for 
the  uplift  of  the  better  classes,  beside  him  and 
scarcely  less  influential  than  he  in  every  way, 
was  St.  Jane  Frances  De  Chantal.  In  the  great 
new  organization  of  modern  charity  under  St. 
Vincent  De  Paul  beside  that  wonderful  friend 
of  the  poor  whose  work  is  the  underlying  impulse 
of  all  modern  organized  charity  in  the  best  sense 
of  that  much  abused  term,  stood  the  modest  and 
humble  but  strongly  beautiful  woman,  the  found- 
ress of  the  Sisters  of  Charity,  Madame  Le  Gras. 
Even  in  the  nineteenth  century  with  the  newer 
organizations  of  education  demanded  by  changed 
conditions,  when  such  foundations  as  those  of  the 
Sacred  Heart  and  of  the  Sisters  of  Notre  Dame 


CHURCH  AND  FEMININE  EDUCATION    293 

came  into  existence,  men  and  women  co-operated 
in  these  works  and  only  now  are  we  realizing  to 
the  full  the  sanctity  of  such  women  as  Blessed 
Madame  Barat  or  the  Venerable  Julie  Bilhart 
and  their  adviser  and  friend,  Father  Varin,  the 
Jesuit. 

Nor  was  it  only  in  connection  with  work  accom- 
plished by  men  or  initiated  by  them  that  we  find 
women  doing  great  work.  It  must  not  be  for- 
gotten that  many  of  the  religious  orders  which 
are  accomplishing  fine  work  in  every  line  of  help- 
ful endeavor,  often  hundreds  of  years  after  their 
foundations,  in  conditions  very  different  from 
those  in  which  they  were  established,  originated  in 
the  minds  of  women  and  had  their  constitutions 
worked  out  practically  without  any  help  from 
men,  and  often,  indeed,  against  the  judgment 
of  men.  The  world  of  our  day  is  not  prone  to 
appreciate  at  its  proper  worth  these  great  works 
of  women  who  took  for  an  aim  in  life  unselfish 
purpose,  rather  than  any  more  personal  ambi- 
tion. It  must  not  be  forgotten,  then,  that  the 
first  settlement  worker  of  modern  times,  the  dear 
St.  Elizabeth  of  Hungary,  is  one  of  the  great  in- 
fluences that  will  never  die.  The  cathedral  erected 
in  her  honor  within  a  few  years  after  her  death 
is  the  most  beautiful  monument  to  woman  any- 
where in  the  world.  What  St.  Elizabeth  was  to 
the  thirteenth  century,  St.  Catherine  of  Sienna 
was  to  the  fourteenth.  Without  her  influence  and 
her  place  in  it,  it  would  be  impossible  to  tinder- 


294    CHURCH  AND  FEMININE  EDUCATION 

stand  the  history  of  that  century,  though  some- 
•times  history  has  been  written  without  a  mention 
of  her.  In  the  fifteenth  century  came  Joan  of 
Arc,  in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  some  of  the 
brave  women  who  founded  great  humanitarian 
works  in  connection  with  the  early  missionaries  in 
this  country.  Everywhere  in  history  you  find 
CathoHc  women  accomphshing  great  things. 

After  all,  this  is  only  what  is  to  be  anticipated 
from  what  is  symbolized  and  prefigured  in  the 
.  story  of  the  foundation  of  the  Church.  When  the 
Son  of  God  came  as  the  Redeemer  of  Mankind, 
beside  Him  in  His  life  and  mission,  the  highest 
of  mortals  in  the  influence  that  she  was  to  have 
over  all  succeeding  generations,  stood  the  Woman, 
whose  seed  was  to  crush  the  serpent's  head,  the 
Mother  from  whom  He  had  chosen  to  take  His 
human  flesh.  The  Mother  of  the  Messiah  became 
the  Mother  of  the  infant  Church  and  the  Mother 
of  all  Christians  ever  since.  Surely  this  was 
given  for  a  sign  not  to  be  contradicted  in  the 
after-time.  As  the  Mother  beside  the  Son,  so 
was  woman  ever  to  stand  as  the  most  precious 
influence  in  the  work  of  Christianity.  As  the 
great  scheme  of  redemption  was  dependent  on  her 
consent,  so  ever  was  woman  to  be  God's  greatest 
auxiliary  in  the  accomplishment  of  good  for 
humanity. 

You  can  understand,  then,  that  when  I  say  to 
yau  graduates  of  St.  Elizabeth's,  go  out  and  ful- 
fil your  missions,  whatever  they  may  be,  I  mean 


CHURCH  AND  FEMININE  EDUCATION    295 

that  you  shall  be  ready  to  take  up  any  work  for 
which  your  education  and  3'our  training  fit  you, 
and  God  grant  it  may  bring  you  such  opportuni- 
ties for  good  as  have  been  exemplified  in  the  lives 
of  so  many  Catholic  women  all  down  the  ages. 
There  is  nothing  more  than  this  that  I  could 
say  to  3'ou.  Our  mother  Church,  far  from  want- 
ing to  keep  women  in  the  background,  has  always 
accorded  them  full  and  equal  rights  in  their  own 
domains  and,  above  all,  has  given  them  absolute 
independence  in  the  religious  organizations  as 
far  as  that  is  compatible  with  effective  co-opera- 
tion in  good  work.  You  may  be  sure,  then,  that 
any  work  that  you  find  to  do  worthy  of  you, 
and  that  you  take  up  whole-heartedly,  will  have 
not  only  her  blessing  but  you  shall  find  every 
encouragement.  The  glorious  examples  of  the 
Catholic  women  of  the  past,  educated,  intellectual 
women,  some  of  whom  like  St.  Teresa,  St.  Cath- 
erine of  Sienna,  St.  Jane  Frances  De  Chantal 
and  St.  Brigid  are  high  among  the  greatest  in- 
tellectual women  that  ever  lived,  will  be  your 
guiding  stars,  and  if  j^ou  keep  them  in  mind  you 
shall  not  go  wrong.  Remember  that  we  expect 
much  and  we  have  a  right  to  expect  much  of  the 
women  graduates  of  our  Catholic  Women's  Col- 
leges— you  have  a  great  mission,  you  have  put 
your  hand  to  the  plow,  do  not  look  back, — on- 
ward and  upward.  God's  in  his  world  and  all's 
well.     Onty  our  co-operation  is  needed. 


ORIGINS   IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION 


"  Libenter    homines    id    quod    volunt    credunt." — Cjesab, 

BeU.  Gall,  Hi:  8. 

[Men  believe  readily  what  they  want  to.] 

"  Great"  additions  have  of  late  been  made  to  our  knowl- 
edge of  the  past ;  the  long  conspiracy  against  the  revela- 
tion of  truth  has  gradually  given  away.  ...  It  has  become 
impossible  for  the  historical  writer  of  the  present  age  to 
trust  without  reserve  even  to  the  most  respected  secondary 
authorities.  The  honest  student  finds  himself  continually 
deserted,  retarded,  misled  by  the  classics  of  historical  lit- 
erature."— Preface  of  "  Cambridge  Modern  History." 


ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION  * 

Here  in  the  United  States  we  have  been  some- 
what amazingly  ignorant  of  our  brother  Ameri- 
cans of  Mexico  and  of  South  America.  Our 
ignorance  has  been  so  complete  as  to  have  the 
usual  result  of  quite  intolerant  bigotry  with  re- 
gard to  the  significance  of  what  was  being  done 
in  these  Spanish- American  countries.  A  distin- 
guished ex-president  of  one  of  our  American  uni- 
versities said  in  his  autobiography,  that  a  favorite 
maxim  of  his  for  his  own  guidance  was,  "  The 
man  I  don't  like  is  the  man  I  don't  know."  If  we 
only  know  enough  about  people,  we  always  find 
out  quite  enough  about  them  that  is  admirable  to 
make  us  like  them.  Whenever  we  are  tempted  to 
conclude  that  somebody  is  hopelessly  insignificant 
then  what  we  need  to  correct  is  our  judgment  by 
better  knowledge  of  them.  For  most  Americans, 
for  we  have  arrogated  to  ourselves  the  title  of 
Americans  to  the  exclusion  of  any  possible  share 

*  The  material  for  this  address  was  collected  for  a  lecture  on  the 
History  of  Education  for  the  Sisters  of  Charity  of  Mount  St.  Vin- 
cent's, New  York,  and  the  Sacred  Heart  Academy,  Kenwood,  Albany, 
N.  Y.  Subsequently  it  was  developed  for  an  address  to  the  parochial 
school  teachers  of  New  Orleans  and  for  the  summer  normal  courses 
of  St.  Mary's  College,  South  Bend,  Ind.,  and  St.  Mary's  College, 
Monroe,  Mich.  Very  nearly  in  its  present  form  the  address  was 
delivered  in  a  course  at  Boston  College  in  the  spring  of  1910. 

299 


300      ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION 

in  it  of  our  South  American  brethren,  Spanish 
America  has  been  so  hopelessly  backward,  so  out 
of  all  comparison  with  ourselves,  as  to  be  quite 
undeserving  of  our  notice  unless  it  be  for  pro- 
found deprecation. 

Fortunately  for  us  in  recent  years  our  knowl- 
edge of  Spanish  America  has  become  larger  and 
deeper  and  more  genuine,  and  as  a  consequence 
there  has  been  less  assumption  of  knowledge 
founded  on  ignorance.  Every  gain  in  knowledge 
of  Spanish  America  has  raised  Spanish  America 
and  her  peoples  in  our  estimation.  Not  long  since 
at  a  public  dinner  the  president  of  a  great  Ameri- 
can university  said,  "  We  have  only  just  discov- 
ered Spanish  America."  This  is  literally  true. 
We  have  thought  that  we  knew  much  about  it, 
and  that  that  much  showed  us  how  little  deserving 
of  our  attention  was  Spanish  America,  while  all 
the  while  a  precious  mine  of  information  with 
regard  to  the  beginnings  of  the  history  of  educa- 
tion, of  literature,  of  culture,  nay,  even  of  phys- 
ical science  on  this  continent,  remained  to  be 
studied  in  these  countries  and  not  our  own.  Our 
scholars  are  now  engaged  in  bringing  together  the 
materials  out  of  which  a  real  history  of  Spanish 
America  can  be  constructed  for  their  fellow- 
Americans  of  the  North,  and  their  surprise  when 
it  is  placed  before  them  is  likely  to  be  supreme. 
In  the  meantime  there  are  some  phases  of  this  in- 
formation that;  I  think,  it  will  be  interesting  to 
bring  together  for  you. 


ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION      301 

Josh  Billings,  writing  as  "  Uncle  Esek  "  in  the 
Century  Magazine  some  twenty-five  years  ago, 
made  use  of  an  expression  which  deserves  to  be 
frequently  recalled.  He  said:  "  It  is  not  so  much 
the  ignorance  of  mankind  that  makes  them  ridicu- 
lous as  the  knowin'  so  many  things  that  ain't 
so."  We  have  a  very  typical  illustration  of  the 
wisdom  of  this  fine  old  saw  in  the  history  of 
education  here  in  America  as  it  is  being  developed 
by  scholarly  historical  research  at  the  present 
time.  The  consultation  of  original  documents  and 
of  first-hand  authorities  in  the  history  of  Spanish- 
American  education  has  fairly  worked  a  revolu- 
tion in  the  ideas  formerly  held  on  this  subject. 
The  new  developments  bring  out  very  forcibly 
how  supremely  necessary  it  is  to  know  something 
definite  about  a  subject  before  writing  about  it, 
and  yet  how  many  intelligent  and  supposedly  edu- 
cated men  continue  to  talk  about  things  with  an 
assumption  of  knowledge  when  they  know  nothing 
at  all  about  them. 

Catholics  are  supposed  by  the  generality  of 
Americans  to  have  come  late  into  the  field  of  edu- 
cation in  this  country.  Whatever  there  is  of 
education  on  this  continent  is  ordinarily  supposed 
to  be  due  entirely  to  the  efforts  of  what  has  been 
called  the  Anglo-Saxon  element  here.  At  last, 
however,  knowledge  is  growing  of  what  the  Catho- 
lic Spaniards  did  for  education  in  America  and 
as  a  consequence  the  face  of  the  history  of  edu- 
cation is  being  completely  changed.     Every  ad- 


302      ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION 

vance  in  history  in  recent  years  has  made  for  the 
advantage  of  the  Catholic  Church.  Modern  his- 
torical methods  insist  on  the  consultation  of 
original  documents  and  give  very  little  weight  to 
the  quotation  of  second-hand  authorities.  We  are 
getting  at  enduring  history  as  far  as  that  is  pos- 
sible, and  the  real  position  of  the  Church  is  coming 
to  light.  In  no  portion  of  human  accomplishment 
is  the  modification  of  history  more  striking  than 
with  regard  to  education.  There  was  much  more 
education  in  the  past  centuries  than  we  have 
thought  and  the  Catholic  Church  was  always  an 
important  factor  in  it.  Nowhere  is  this  truth 
more  striking  than  with  regard  to  education  here 
in  America  in  the  Spanish- American  countries. 

Professor  Edward  Gaylord  Bourne,  professor 
of  history  at  Yale  University,  wrote  the  volume 
on  Spain  in  America  which  constitutes  the  third 
volume  of  "  The  American  Nation,"  a  history  of 
this  country  in  twenty-seven  volumes  edited  by 
Professor  Albert  Bushnell  Hart,  who  holds  the 
chair  of  history  at  Harvard  University.  Pro- 
fessor Bourne  has  no  illusions  with  regard  to  the 
relative  value  of  Anglo-Saxon  and  Spanish  edu- 
cation in  this  country.  In  his  chapter  on  "  The 
Transmission  of  European  Culture"  he  says: 
'^  Early  in  the  eighteenth  century  the  Lima  Uni- 
versity (Lima,  Peru)  counted  nearly  two  thou- 
sand students  and  numbered  about  one  hundred 
and  eighty  doctors  (in  its  faculty)  in  theology, 
civil  and  canon  law,  medicine  and  the  arts."      UUoa 


ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION      303 

reports  that  "  the  university  makes  a  stately  ap- 
pearance from  without  and  its  inside  is  decorated 
with  suitable  ornaments."  There  were  chairs  of 
all  the  sciences  and  "  some  of  the  professors  have, 
notwithstanding  the  vast  distance,  gained  the  ap- 
plause of  the  literati  of  Europe."  "  The  coming 
of  the  Jesuits  contributed  much  to  the  real  educa- 
tional work  in  America.  They  established  col- 
leges, one  of  which,  the  little  Jesuit  college  at 
Juli,  on  Lake  Titicaca,  became  a  seat  of  genuine 
learning."      (Bourne.) 

He  does  not  hesitate  to  emphasize  the  contrast 
between  Spanish  America  and  English  America 
with  regard  to  education  and  culture,  and  the 
most  interesting  feature  of  his  comparison  is  that 
Spanish  America  surpassed  the  North  completely 
and  anticipated  by  nearly  two  centuries  some  of 
the  progress  that  we  are  so  proud  of  in  the  nine- 
teenth century.  What  a  startling  paragraph,  for 
instance,  is  the  following  for  those  who  have  been 
accustomed  to  make  little  of  the  Church's  interest 
in  education  and  to  attribute  the  backwardness  of 
South  America,  as  they  presumed  they  knew  it,  to 
the  presence  of  the  Church  and  her  influence 
there. 

"  Not  all  the  institutions  of  learning  founded  in 
Mexico  in  the  sixteenth  century  can  be  enumer- 
ated here,  but  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  in 
number,  range  of  studies  and  standard  of  attain- 
ments by  the  officers  they  surpassed  anything  ex- 
isting in   English  America  until  the   nineteenth 


304      ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION 

century,  Mexican  scholars  made  distinguished 
achievements  in  some  branches  of  science,  particu- 
larly medicine  and  surgery,  but  pre-eminently 
linguistics,  history  and  anthropology.  Diction- 
aries and  grammars  of  the  native  languages  and 
histories  of  the  Mexican  institutions  are  an  impos- 
ing proof  of  their  scholarly  devotion  and  intel- 
lectual activity.  Conspicuous  are  Toribio  de 
Motolinia's  '  Historia  de  las  Indias  de  Nueva 
Espana,'  Duran's  '  Historia  de  las  Indias  de 
Xueva  Espana,'  but  most  important  of  all  Saha- 
gun's  great  M^ork  on  Mexican  life  and  religion." 
Indeed,  it  is  with  regard  to  science  in  various 
forms  that  one  finds  the  most  surprising  contribu- 
tions from  these  old-time  scholars.  While  the 
English  in  America  were  paying  practically  no 
attention  to  science,  the  Spaniards  were  deeply 
interested  in  it.  Dr.  Chan^a,  a  physician  who  had 
been  for  several  years  physician-in-ordinary  to  the 
King  and  Queen  and  was  looked  upon  as  one  of 
the  leaders  of  his  profession  in  Spain,  joined 
Columbus'  second  expedition  in  order  to  make 
scientific  notes.  The  little  volume  that  he  issued 
as  the  report  of  this  scientific  excursion  is  a  valu- 
able contribution  to  the  science  of  the  time  and 
furnishes  precious  information  with  regard  to 
Indian  medicine,  Indian  customs,  their  knowledge 
of  botany  and  of  metals,  certain  phases  of  zoology, 
and  the  like,  that  show  how  wide  was  the  interest 
in  science  of  this  Spanish  physician  of  over  four 
hundred  years  ago. 


ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION      305 

After  reading  paragraphs  such  as  Professor 
Bourne  has  written  with  regard  to  education  in 
Spanish  America,  how  Umusing  it  is  to  reflect 
that  one  of  the  principal  arguments  against  the 
Catholic  Church  has  been  that  she  keeps  nations 
backward  and  unprogressive  and  uneducated — 
and  the  South  American  countries  have  been  held 
up  derisively  and  conclusively  as  horrible  examples 
of  this.  Even  we  Catholics  have  been  prone  to 
take  on  an  apologetic  mood  with  regard  to  them. 
The  teaching  of  history  in  English-speaking  coun- 
tries has  been  so  untrue  to  the  realities  that  we 
have  accepted  the  impression  that  the  Spanish- 
American  countries  were  far  behind  in  all  the  ways 
that  were  claimed.  Now  we  find  that  instead  of  pre- 
senting grounds  for  apology  they  are  triumphant 
examples  of  how  soon  and  how  energetically  the 
Church  gets  to  work  at  the  great  problems  of  edu- 
cation wherever  she  gains  a  position  of  authority 
or  even  a  foothold  of  influence.  Instead  of  need- 
ing to  be  ashamed  of  them,  as  we  have  perhaps 
ignorantly  been,  there  is  a  reason  to  be  deservedly 
proud  of  them.  Their  education  far  outstripped 
our  own  in  all  the  centuries  down  to  the  nine- 
teenth, and  the  culture  of  the  Spanish- Americans, 
quite  a  different  thing  from  education,  is  deeper 
than  ours  even  at  the  present  time.  It  is  hard 
for  North  America  to  permit  herself  to  be  per- 
suaded of  this,  but  there  is  no  doubt  of  its  abso- 
lute truth. 

It  is  only  since  the  days  of  steam  that  the  Eng- 


306      ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION 

lish-speaking  races  in  America  have  come  to  pos- 
sess a  certain  material  progress  above  that  of  the 
Spanish- American  countries.     Bourne  says: 

"  If  we  compare  Spanish  America  with  the 
United  States  a  hundred  years  ago  we  must 
recognize  that  while  in  the  North  there  was  a 
sounder  body  politic,  a  purer  social  life  and  a 
more  general  dissemination  of  elementary  educa- 
tion, yet  in  Spanish  America  there  were  both 
vastly  greater  wealth  and  greater  poverty,  more 
imposing  monuments  of  civilization,  such  as  pub- 
lic buildings,  institutions  of  learning  and  hospitals, 
more  populous  and  richer  cities,  a  higher  attain- 
ment in  certain  branches  of  science.  No  one  can 
read  Humboldt's  account  of  the  City  of  Mexico 
and  its  establishments  for  the  promotion  of  sci- 
ence and  the  fine  arts  without  realizing  that  what- 
ever may  be  the  superiorities  of  the  United  States 
over  Mexico  in  these  respects,  they  have  been 
mostly  the  gains  of  the  age  of  steam." 

While  we  are  prone  to  think  that  a  republican 
form  of  government  is  the  great  foster-mother  of 
progress  and  that  whatever  development  may  have 
come  in  South  American  countries  has  been  the 
result  of  the  foundation  of  the  South  American 
republics.  Professor  Bourne  is  not  of  that  opinion 
and  is  inclined  to  think  that  if  the  Spanish  Co- 
lonial Government  could  have  been  maintained 
at  its  best  until  the  coming  of  the  age  of  steam 
or  well  on  into  the  nineteenth  century,  then  the 
South  American  republics  would  have  been  serious 


ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION      307 

rivals  of  the  United  States  and  have  been  kept 
from  being  so  hampered  as  they  were  by  their 
internal  political  dissensions.  His  paragraph  on 
this  matter  is  so  contradictory  of  ordinary  im- 
pressions, here  in  the  United  States  particularly, 
that  it  seems  worth  while  calling  attention  to  it 
because  it  contains  that  most  precious  of  sugges- 
tions, a  thought  that  is  entirely  different  from  any 
that  most  people  have  had  before.     He  says: 

"  During  the  first  half -century  after  the  appli- 
cation of  steam  to  transportation  Mexico  weltered 
in  domestic  turmoils  arising  out  of  the  crash  of 
the  old  regime.  If  the  rule  of  Spain  could  have 
lasted  half  a  century  longei',  being  progressively 
as  it  was  during  the  reign  of  Charles  III;  if  a 
succession  of  such  viceroys  as  Revilla  Gigedo,  in 
Mexico,  and  De  Croix  and  De  Taboaday  Lemos, 
in  Peru,  could  have  borne  sway  in  America  until 
railroads  could  have  been  built,  intercolonial  inter- 
course ramified  and  a  distinctly  Spanish- American 
spirit  developed,  a  great  Spanish-American  fed- 
eral state  might  possibly  have  been  created,  ca- 
pable of  self-defense  against  Europe,  and  inviting 
co-operation  rather  than  aggression  from  the 
neighbor  in  the  North." 

Lima  was  the  great  centre  for  education  in 
South  America,  and  Mexico,  in  Spanish  North 
America,  was  not  far  at  all  behind.  The  tracing 
of  the  steps  of  the  development  of  education  in 
Mexico  emphasizes  especially  the  difference  be- 
tween the  Spaniards  and  the  Englishmen  in  their 


308      ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION 

relation  to  the  Indian.  Bishop  Zumaraga  wanted 
a  college  for  Indians  in  his  bishopric,  and  it  was 
because  of  this  beneficent  purpose  that  the  first 
institution  for  higher  education  in  the  New  World 
was  founded  as  early  as  1535.  At  that  time  the 
need  for  education  for  the  whites  was  not  felt 
so  much,  since  only  adults  as  a  rule  were  in  the 
colony,  the  number  of  children  and  growing 
youths  being  as  yet  very  small.  Accordingly,  the 
College  of  Santa  Cruz,  in  Tlaltelolco,  one  of 
the  quarters  of  the  City  of  IMexico  reserved  for 
the  Indians,  was  founded  under  the  bishop's  pa- 
tronage. Among  the  faculty  were  graduates  of 
the  University  of  Paris  and  of  Salamanca,  two  of 
the  greatest  universities  of  Europe  of  this  time, 
and  they  had  not  only  the  ambition  to  teach,  but 
also  to  follow  out  that  other  purpose  of  a  uni- 
versity— to  investigate  and  write.  Among  them 
were  such  eminent  scholars  as  Bernardino  de 
Sahagun,  the  founder  of  American  anthropology, 
and  Juan  de  Torquemada,  who  is  himself  a  prod- 
uct of  Mexican  education,  whose  "  Monarquia 
Indiana  "  is  a  great  storehouse  of  facts  concern- 
ing Mexico  before  the  coming  of  the  whites,  and 
precious  details  with  regard  to  Mexican  antiqui- 
ties. 

Knowing  this,  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  cur- 
riculum was  broad  and  liberal.  Besides  the  ele- 
mentary branches  and  grammar  and  rhetoric,  in- 
struction was  provided  in  Latin,  philosophy, 
Mexican  medicine,  music,  botany  (especially  with 


ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION      309 

reference  to  native  plants),  the  zoology  of  Mexico, 
some  principles  of  agriculture,  and  the  native 
languages.  It  is  not  surprising  to  be  told  that 
many  of  the  graduates  of  this  college  became 
Alcaldes  and  Governors  in  the  Indian  towns,  and 
that  they  did  much  to  spread  civilization  and  cul- 
ture among  their  compatriots.  The  English- 
speaking  Americans  furnished  nothing  of  this 
kind,  and  our  colleges  for  Indians  came  only  in 
the  nineteenth  century.  It  is  true  that  Harvard, 
according  to  its  charter,  was  "  for  the  education 
of  the  Indian  youth  of  this  country  in  knowledge 
and  godliness,"  but  the  Indians  were  entirely 
neglected  and  no  serious  effort  was  ever  made  to 
give  them  any  education.  It  was  a  son  of  the 
Puritans  who  said  that  his  forefathers  first  fell 
on  their  knees  and  then  on  the  aborigines,  and  the 
difference  in  the  treatment  of  the  Indians  by  the 
English  and  the  Spaniards  is  a  marked  note  in  all 
their  history. 

During  the  next  few  years  schools  were  estab- 
lished also  for  the  education  of  mestizo  children, 
that  is,  of  the  mixed  race  who  are  now  called 
Creoles.  In  fact,  in  1536  a  fund  from  the  Royal 
Exchequer  was  given  for  the  teaching  of  these 
children.  Strange  as  it  may  seem,  for  we  are  apt 
to  think  that  the  teaching  of  girls  is  a  modern 
idea,  schools  were  also  established  for  Indian 
girls.  All  of  these  schools  continued  to  flourish, 
and  gradually  spread  beyond  the  City  of  Mexico 
itself  into  the  villages  of  the  Indians.    As  a  mat- 


310      ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION 

ter  of  fact,  wherever  a  mission  was  established  a 
school  was  also  founded.  Every  town,  Indian 
as  well  as  Spanish,  was  by  law  required  to  have 
its  church,  hospital  and  school  for  teaching  In- 
dian children  Spanish  and  the  elements  of  re- 
ligion. The  teaching  and  parish  work  in  the 
Indian  villages  was  in  charge  of  two  or  more 
friars,  as  a  rule,  and  was  well  done.  The  remains 
of  the  monasteries  with  their  magnificent  Spanish- 
American  architecture,  are  still  to  be  seen  in 
many  portions  of  Mexico  and  of  the  Spanish  ter- 
ritories that  have  been  incorporated  with  the 
United  States,  in  places  where  they  might  be  least 
expected,  and  they  show  the  influence  for  culture 
and  education  that  gradually  extended  all  over 
the  Mexican  country. 

In  the  course  of  time  the  necessity  for  advanced 
teaching  for  the  constantly  growing  number  of 
native  whites  began  to  be  felt,  and  so  during  the 
fifth  decade  of  the  sixteenth  century  a  number 
of  schools  for  them  came  into  existence  in  the  City 
of  Mexico.  The  need  was  felt  for  some  central 
institution.  Accordingly,  the  Spanish  Crown  was 
petitioned  to  establish  authoritatively  a  univer- 
sity. Such  a  step  would  have  been  utterly  out 
of  the  question  in  English  America,  because  the 
Crown  was  so  little  interested  in  colonial  affairs. 
In  the  Spanish  country,  however,  the  Crown  was 
deeply  interested  in  making  the  colonists  feel  that 
though  they  were  at  a  distance  from  the  centre 
of   government,    their   rulers    were    interested    in 


ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION      311 

securing  for  them,  as  far  as  possible,  all  the  op- 
portunities of  life  at  home  in  Spain.  This  is  so 
different  from  what  is  ordinarily  presumed  to 
have  been  the  attitude  of  Spain  towards  its 
colonies  as  to  be  quite  a  surprise  for  those  who 
have  depended  on  old-fashioned  history,  but  there 
can  be  no  doubt  of  its  truth.  Accordingly,  the 
University  of  Mexico  received  its  royal  charter 
the  same  year  as  the  University  of  Lima  (1551). 
Mexico  was  not  formally  organized  as  a  university 
until  1553.  In  the  light  of  these  dates,  it  is  rather 
amusing  to  have  the  Century  Dictio^iary,  under 
the  word  Harvard  University,  speak  of  that  insti- 
tution as  the  oldest  and  largest  institution  of 
learning  in  America.  It  had  been  preceded  by 
almost  a  century,  not  only  in  South  America,  but 
also  in  North  America.  The  importance  of  Har- 
vard was  as  nothing  compared  to  the  universities 
of  Lima  and  Mexico,  and  indeed  for  a  century 
after  its  foundation  Harvard  was  scarcely  more 
than  a  small  theological  school,  with  a  hundred  or 
so  of  pupils,  sometimes  having  no  graduating 
class,  practically  never  graduating  more  than 
eight  or  ten  pupils,  while  the  two  Spanish- 
American  universities  counted  their  students  by 
the  thousand  and  their  annual  graduates  by  the 
hundred. 

The  reason  for  the  success  of  these  South 
American  universities  above  that  of  Harvard  is 
to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  Harvard's  sphere  of 
usefulness  was  extremely  limited  because  of  re- 


312      ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION 

ligious  differences  and  shades  of  differences.  This 
had  hampered  all  education  in  Protestant  coun- 
tries very  seriously.  Professor  Paulsen,  who  holds 
the  chair  of  philosophy  at  the  University  of 
Berlin,  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  Refor- 
mation had  anything  but  the  effect  of  favoring 
education  that  has  often  been  said.  The  picture 
that  he  draws  of  conditions  in  Germany  a  cen- 
tury before  the  foundation  of  Harvard  would 
serve  very  well  as  a  lively  prototype  of  the  factors 
at  work  in  preventing  Harvard  from  becoming 
such  an  educational  institution  as  the  universities 
of  Lima  and  Mexico  so  naturally  became.  He 
says,  in  "  German  Universities  and  University 
Studies":  "During  this  period  [after  Luther's 
revolt]  a  more  determined  effort  was  made  to 
control  instruction  than  at  any  period  before  or 
since.  The  fear  of  heresy,  the  extraordinary 
anxiety  to  keep  instruction  well  within  orthodox 
lines,  was  not  less  intense  at  the  Lutheran  than  at 
the  Catholic  institutions;  perhaps  it  was  even 
more  so,  because  here  doctrine  was  not  so  well 
established,  apostasy  was  possible  in  either  of 
two  directions,  toward  Catholicism  or  Calvinism. 
Even  the  philosophic  faculty  felt  the  pressure  of 
this  demand  for  correctness  of  doctrines.  Thus 
came  about  these  restrictions  within  the  petty 
states  and  their  narrow-minded  established 
churches  which  well-nigh  stifled  the  intellectual 
life  of  the  German  people." 

Because  of  this  and  the  fact  that  the  attendance 


ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION      313 

at  the  college  did  not  justify  it,  the  school  of 
medicine  at  Harvard  was  not  opened  until  after 
the  Revolution  (1783).  The  law  school  was  not 
opened  until   1817. 

This  is  sometimes  spoken  of  as  the  earliest  law 
school  connected  with  a  university  on  this  con- 
tinent, but,  of  course,  only  by  those  who  know 
nothing  at  all  about  the  history  of  the  Spanish- 
American  universities.  In  the  Spanish  countries 
-the  chairs  in  law  were  established  very  early;  in- 
deed, before  those  of  medicine.  Canon  law  was 
always  an  important  subject  in  Spanish  univer- 
sities, and  civil  law  was  so  closely  connected  with 
it  that  it  was  never  neglected. 

When  the  charter  of  the  University  of  Lima 
was  granted  by  the  Emperor  Charles  V,  in  1551, 
the  town  was  scarcely  more  than  fifteen  years  old. 
It  had  been  founded  in  1535.  Curiously  enough, 
just  about  the  same  interval  had  elapsed  between 
the  foundation  of  the  Massachusetts  colony  by  the 
Pilgrims  and  the  legal  establishment  of  the  col- 
lege afterward  known  as  Harvard  by  the  General 
Court  of  the  colony.  It  is  evident  that  in  both 
cases  it  was  the  needs  of  the  rising  generation  who 
had  come  to  be  from  twelve  to  sixteen  years  of 
age  that  led  to  the  establishment  of  these  institu- 
tions of  higher  education.  The  actual  foundation 
of  Harvard  did  not  come  for  two  years  later,  and 
the  intention  of  the  founders  was  not  nearly  so 
broad  as  that  of  the  founders  of  the  University  of 
Lima.     Already   at   Lima  schools   had  been   es- 


314      ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION 

tablished  by  the  religious  orders,  and  it  was  with 
the  idea  of  organizing  the  education  as  it  was 
being  given  that  the  charter  from  the  Crown  was 
obtained.  With  regard  to  both  Lima  and  Mexico, 
within  a  few  years  a  bull  of  approval  and  con- 
firmation was  asked  and  obtained  from  the  Pope. 
The  University  of  Lima  continued  to  develop  with 
wonderful  success.  In  the  middle  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  it  had  more  than  a  thousand  stu- 
dents, at  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  it  had. 
two  thousand  students,  and  there  is  no  doubt  at 
all  of  its  successful  accomplishment  of  all  that  a 
university  is  supposed  to  do. 

Juan  Antonio  Ribeyro,  who  was  the  rector  of 
the  University  of  Lima  forty  years  ago,  said  in 
the  introduction  to  "  The  University  Annals  for 
1869  "  that,  "  It  cannot  be  denied  that  the  Uni- 
versity of  Peru  during  its  early  history  filled  a 
large  role  of  direct  intervention  for  the  formation 
of  laws,  for  the  amelioration  of  customs  and  in 
directing  all  the  principal  acts  of  civil  and  private 
society,  forming  the  religious  beliefs,  rendering 
them  free  from  superstitions  and  errors  and  in- 
fluencing all  the  institutions  of  the  country  to  the 
common  good."  Certainly  this  is  all  that  would 
be  demanded  of  a  university  as  an  influence  for 
vplift,  and  the  fact  that  such  an  ideal  should  have 
been  cherished  shows  how  well  the  purpose  of  an 
educational  institution  had  been  realized. 

The  scholarly  work  done  by  some  of  these  pro- 
fessors at  Spanish-American  universities  still  re- 


ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION      315 

mains  a  model  of  true  university  work.  It  is  the 
duty  of  the  university  to  add  to  knowledge  as 
well  as  to  disseminate  it.  That  ideal  of  univer- 
sity existence  is  supposed  to  be  a  creation  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  and  indeed  is  often  said  to 
have  been  brought  into  the  history  of  education 
by  the  example  of  the  German  universities.  We 
find,  however,  that  the  professors  of  the  Spanish- 
American  universities  accomplished  much  in  this 
matter  and  that  their  works  remain  as  precious 
storehouses  of  information  for  after  generations. 
Professor  Bourne  has  given  but  a  short  list  of 
them  in  addition  to  those  that  have  already  been 
mentioned,  but  even  this  furnishes  an  excellent 
idea  of  how  much  the  university  professors  of  the 
sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  in  Spanish 
America  were  taking  to  heart  the  duty  of  gather- 
ing, arranging  and  classifying  knowledge  for 
after  generations.  They  did  more  in  the  sciences 
than  in  anything  else.  It  is  often  thought  that 
our  knowledge  of  the  ethnology  and  anthropology 
of  the  Indians  is  entirely  the  creation  of  recent 
investigators,  but  that  is  true  only  if  one  leaves 
out  of  account  the  work  of  these  old  Spanish- 
American  scholars.     Professor  Bourne  says: 

"  The  most  famous  of  the  earlier  Peruvian 
writers  were  Acosta,  the  historian,  the  author  of 
the  '  Xatural  and  Civil  History  of  the  Indies  ' ; 
the  mestizo  Garciasso  de  la  Vega,  who  was  edu- 
cated in  Spain  and  wrote  of  the  Inca  Empire  and 
De  Soto's  expedition;  Sandoval,  the  author  of  the 


316      ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION 

first  work  on  Africa  and  the  negro  written  in 
America;  Antonio  Leon  Pinelo,  the  first  Amer- 
ican bibliographer,  and  one  of  the  greatest  as  well 
of  the  indefatigable  codifiers  of  the  old  legislation 
of  the  Indies.  Pinelo  was  born  in  Peru  and 
educated  at  the  Jesuit  College  in  Lima,  but  spent 
his  literary  life  in  Spain." 

Of  the  University  of  Mexico  more  details  are 
available  than  of  Peru,  and  the  fact  that  it  was 
situated  here  in  North  America  and  that  the  cul- 
ture which  it  influenced  has  had  its  effect  on  cer- 
tain portions  of  the  United  States,  has  made  it 
seem  worth  while  to  devote  considerable  space 
to  it.  The  University  was  called  the  Royal  and 
Pontifical  University  of  Mexico,  because,  while 
it  was  founded  under  the  charter  of  the  King 
of  Spain,  this  had  been  confirmed  by  a  bull  from 
the  Pope,  who  took  the  new  university  directly 
under  the  patronage  of  the  Holy  See.  The  rea- 
son for  the  foundation  of  the  university,  as  the 
men  at  that  time  saw  it,  is  contained  in  the  open- 
ing chapter  of  St.  John's  Gospel,  which  is  quoted 
as  the  preamble  of  the  constitutions  of  the  uni- 
versity: "  In  the  beginning  was  the  Word,  and 
the  Word  was  with  God.  The  same  was  in  the 
beginning  with  God.  All  things  were  made  by 
Him  and  without  Him  was  made  nothing  that 
was  made.  In  Him  was  Life,  and  the  Life  was 
the  light  of  men."  This  they  considered  ample 
reason  for  the  erection  of  a  university  and  the 
spread  of  knowledge  with  God's  own  sanction. 


ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION      317 

The  patron  saints  of  the  university,  as  so  de- 
clared by  the  first  article  of  the  constitutions, 
were  St.  Paul  the  Apostle,  and  St.  Catherine  the 
Martyr.  Among  the  patrons,  however,  were  also 
mentioned  in  special  manner  two  other  saints — 
St.  John  Nepomucen,  who  died  rather  than  re- 
veal the  secrets  of  the  confessional,  and  St.  Alo- 
ysius  Gonzaga,  the  special  patron  of  students.  It 
is  evident  that  these  two  patrons  had  been  chosen 
with  a  particular  idea  that  devotion  to  them  would 
encourage  the  practice  of  such  virtues  and  devo- 
tion to  duty  as  would  be  especially  useful  to  the 
students,  clerical  and  secular,  of  the  university. 
On  all  four  of  the  feast  days  of  these  patrons  the 
university  had  a  holiday.  This  would  seem  to 
be  adding  notably  to  the  number  of  free  days  in  a 
modern  university,  but  must  have  meant  very  little 
at  the  University  of  JNIexico,  they  had  so  many 
other  free  days.  The  most  striking  difference 
between  the  calendar  of  the  University  of  Mexico 
and  that  of  a  modern  university  would  be  the 
number  of  days  in  the  year  in  which  no  lectures 
were  given.  There  were  some  forty  of  these 
altogether.  Besides  the  four  patron  saint  days, 
the  feast  day  of  every  Apostle  was  a  holiday. 
Besides  these,  all  the  Fathers  and  Doctors  of 
the  Church  gave  reasons  for  holidays.  Then 
there  was  St.  Sebastian's  Day,  in  order  that 
young  men  might  be  brave,  St.  Joseph's  Day,  the 
Annunciation,  the  Expectation,  the  Assumption 
and  the  Nativity  of  the  Blessed  Virgin,  the  In- 


318      ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION 

vention  of  the  Holy  Cross,  the  Three  Rogation 
Days  and  the  Feast  of  Our  Lady  of  the  Snows. 
Besides,  there  were  St.  Magdalen's,  St.  Ann's, 
St.  Ignatius'  and  St.  Lawrence's  Day.  These 
were  not  all,  but  this  will  give  an  idea  how  closely 
connected  with  the  Church  were  the  lectures  at 
the  university,  or,  rather,  the  intermission  from 
the  lectures.  It  might  be  said  that  this  was  a 
serious  waste  of  precious  time,  and  that  our  uni- 
versities in  the  modern  time  would  not  think  of 
imitating  them,  but  such  a  remark  could  come  but 
from  some  one  who  did  not  realize  the  real  con- 
dition that  obtained  in  the  old-time  universities. 
At  the  present  time  our  universities  finish  their 
scholastic  year  about  the  middle  of  May  and  do 
not  begin  again  until  October — nearly  twenty 
weeks.  At  these  old  universities  their  annual 
intermission  between  scholastic  years  lasted  only 
the  six  weeks  from  the  Feast  of  the  Nativity  of 
the  Blessed  Virgin,  September  8,  to  St.  Luke's 
Day,  October  18.  They  had  five  weeks  at  Easter 
time  and  two  weeks  at  Christmas  time.  They 
spread  their  year  out  over  a  longer  period  and 
compensated  for  shorter  vacations  by  granting 
holidays  during  the  year.  Their  year's  labor  was 
less  intense  and  spread  out  over  more  ground 
than  ours. 

The  development  of  the  University  of  Mexico 
into  a  real  university  in  the  full  sense  of  the  old 
studium  generale,  in  which  all  forms  of  human 
knowledge  might  be  pursued,  is  very  interesting 


ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION      319 

and  shows  the  thoroughgoing  determination  of 
the  Spanish  Americans  to  make  for  themselves 
and  their  children  an  institute  of  learning  wor- 
thy of  themselves  and  their  magnificent  new 
country. 

Chartered  in  1551,  it  was  not  formally  opened 
until  1553.  Chairs  were  established  in  this  year 
in  theology,  Sacred  Scripture,  canon  law  and 
decretals,  laws,  art,  rhetoric  and  grammar.  Both 
Spanish  and  Latin  were  taught  in  the  classes  of 
grammar  and  rhetoric.  To  these  was  added  very 
shortly  a  chair  in  Mexican  Indian  languages, 
in  accordance  with  the  special  provisions  of  the 
imperial  charter.  The  university  continued  to 
develop  and  added  further  chairs  and  depart- 
ments as  time  went  on.  It  had  a  chair  of  juris- 
prudence at  the  beginning,  but  its  law  depart- 
ment was  completed  in  1569  bj^  the  addition  of 
two  other  chairs,  one  in  the  institutes  of  law,  the 
other  in  codes  of  law.  In  the  meantime  the  uni- 
versity had  begun  to  make  itself  felt  as  a  corpo- 
rate body  for  general  uplift  by  publications  of 
various  kinds.  Its  professor  of  rhetoric.  Dr. 
Cervantes  Salazer,  published  in  1555  three  in- 
teresting Latin  dialogues  in  imitation  of  Erasmus' 
dialogues.  At  the  moment  Erasmus'  "  Col- 
loquia  "  was  the  most  admired  academic  work  in 
the  university  world  of  the  time.  The  first  of 
these  dialogues  described  the  University  of 
Mexico,  and  the  other  two,  taking  up  Mexico  City 
and  its  environments,  gave  an  excellent  idea  of 


320      ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION 

what  the  Spanish-American  capital  of  Mexico 
was  three  centuries  and  a  half  ago. 

"  The  early  promoters  of  education  and  mis- 
sions did  not  rely  upon  the  distant  European 
presses  for  the  publication  of  their  manuals.  The 
printing  press  was  introduced  into  the  New 
World  probably  as  early  as  1536,  and  it  seems 
likely  that  the  first  book,  an  elementary  Christian 
doctrine  called  '  La  Escala  Espiritual '  (the 
ladder  of  the  spirit),  was  issued  in  1537.  No 
copy  of  it,  however,  is  known  to  exist.  Seven 
different  printers  plied  their  craft  in  New  Spain 
in  the  sixteenth  century.  Among  the  notable  is- 
sues of  these  presses,  besides  the  religious  works 
and  church  service  works,  were  dictionaries  and 
grammars  of  the  Mexican  languages,  Puga's 
'  Cedulario  '  in  1563,  a  compilation  of  royal  ordi- 
nances, Farfan's  '  Tractado  de  Medicina.'  In 
1605  appeared  the  first  text-book  published  in 
America  for  instruction  in  Latin,  a  manual  of 
poetics  with  illustrative  examples  from  heathen 
and  Christian  poets."      (Bourne.) 

With  the  light  thrown  on  the  early  history  of 
printing  on  this  continent  by  a  paragraph  like 
this,  how  amusing  it  is  to  be  told  that  the  tradi- 
tion among  the  printers  and  the  publishers  and 
even  the  bibliophiles  of  the  United  States  is  that 
the  first  book  printed  in  America  was  the  Massa- 
chusetts Bay  Psalm  Book  printed,  I  believe,  in 
1637.  There  were  no  less  than  seven  printing 
presses  at  work  in  Mexico  during  the  sixteenth 


ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION      321 

century,  fully  fifty  years  before  the  Massachusetts 
Bay  Psalm  Book  was  issued.  How  interesting  it 
is  for  those  who  still  like  to  insist  that  the 
Catholic  Church  is  opposed  to  the  distribution 
of  the  Scriptures  to  the  people  or  its  printing 
in  the  vernacular,  to  find  how  many  editions  of 
it  were  printed  in  Mexico  and  in  South  America 
during  the  sixteenth  century.  This  story  of  the 
printing  press  in  Spanish  America  in  the  early 
days  would  of  itself  make  a  most  interesting 
chapter  in  a  volume  on  American  origins,  which 
could  probably  be  extended  into  a  very  valuable 
little  manual  of  bibliography  and  bibliophilic  in- 
formation that  would  arouse  new  interest  in  the 
accumulation  of  early  American  books. 

The  university  had  been  founded  just  twenty- 
five  years  when  provision  was  made  for  the  es- 
tablishment of  the  medical  department.  Accord- 
ing to  most  of  the  chronicles  the  first  chair  in 
medicine  was  founded  June  21,  1578,  although 
there  are  some  authorities  who  state  that  this 
establishment  came  only  in  1580.  I  am  a  gradu- 
ate of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania  Medical 
School  myself,  and  I  yield  to  none  of  her  sons 
in  veneration  for  my  Alma  JNIater,  but  I  cannot 
pass  over  this  statement  of  the  foundation  of  the 
medical  school  in  jNIexico  without  recalling  that 
we  have  been  rather  proud  at  the  University  of 
Pennsylvania  to  be  known  as  the  First  American 
Medical  School.  This  is,  of  course,  only  due 
tp    our    fond    United    States    way    of    assuming 


322      ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION 

ourselves  to  be  all  America  and  utterly  neglect- 
ing any  knowledge  of  Spanish  America.  I  be- 
lieve that  there  are  tablets  erected  at  the  Univer- 
sity of  Pennsylvania  chronicling  our  priority. 
One  of  them  is  to  the  first  graduating  class,  the 
other  to  the  first  faculty  of  the  medical  school. 
I  believe  that  between  the  erection  of  the  two 
tablets  there  had  come  to  be  some  suspicion  of  the 
possibility  that  South  America  was  ahead  of  us 
in  this  respect  and  so  the  second  tablet  specifically 
mentions  North  America.  When  I  talked  some 
time  ago  before  the  College  of  Physicians  of 
Philadelphia  on  this  subject  one  of  my  friends, 
who  was  a  teacher  at  the  university,  asked  me 
what  they  should  do  with  their  tablets.  I  sug- 
gested that,  by  all  means,  they  should  be  allowed 
to  remain,  and  that  as  soon  as  possible  an  op- 
portunity should  be  secured  to  erect  the  third 
tablet  containing  a  statement  of  the  real  facts 
with  regard  to  the  place  of  the  University  of 
Pennsylvania  as  the  protagonist  in  medicine  in 
the  United  States.  The  tablets  will  then  serve 
to  show  the  gradual  evolution  of  our  knowledge 
of  the  true  history  of  medical  education  in  this 
country.  It  is  all  the  more  important  that  this 
should  be  the  arrangement  because  the  Univer- 
sity of  Pennsylvania  has  been  a  leader  in  "  the 
discovery  "  of  South  America  that  has  been  made 
by  us  in  the  last  few  years. 

Between   the    date    of    the    foundation    of    the 
first   chair  in  medicine   at  the  beginning   of   the 


ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION      323 

last  quarter  of  the  sixteenth  century  and  the 
foundation  of  the  city,  Mexico  had  not  been 
without  provision  of  physicians.  In  the  very 
first  year  of  the  existence  of  the  University  of 
Mexico,  though  there  was  no  formal  faculty  of 
medicine,  two  doctors  received  their  degrees  in 
medicine  from  the  university.  They  had  been 
students  in  Spain  and  were  able  to  satisfy  the 
faculty  of  their  ability.  This  shows  that  the  in- 
stitution was  considered  to  have  the  power  to 
confer  these  degrees  upon  those  who  brought 
evidence  of  having  completed  the  necessary  stud- 
ies, though  it  was  not  in  a  position  to  provide 
facilities  for  these  studies.  It  is  evident  that 
this  custom  continued  in  subsequent  years  until 
the  necessity  for  medical  studies  at  home  became 
evident.  The  intimate  connection  between  the 
universities  of  old  Spain  and  of  New  Spain  is 
a  very  interesting  subject  in  the  educational  his- 
tory of  the  time.  Even  before  the  foundation 
of  the  university,  however,  definite  efforts  were 
made  by  the  authorities  to  secure  proper  medi- 
cal service  for  the  colonists  and  to  prevent  their 
exploitation   by   quacks    and   charlatans. 

Strict  medical  regulations  were  established  by 
the  Municipal  Council  of  the  City  of  Mexico  in 
1527  so  as  to  prevent  quacks  from  Europe,  who 
might  think  to  exploit  the  ills  of  the  settlers  in 
the  new  colony,  from  practising  medicine.  Li- 
censes to  practise  were  issued  only  to  those  who 
showed    the    possession    of    a    university    degree. 


.324.     ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION 

This  strict  regulation  of  medical  practice  was 
extended  also  to  the  apothecaries  in  1529.  Even 
before  this,  arrangements  had  been  made  for  the 
regular  teaching  of  barber-surgeons,  so  that  in- 
juries and  wounds  of  various  kinds  might  be 
treated  properly,  and  so  that  emergencies  might 
be  promptly  met,  even  in  the  absence  of  a  physi- 
cian, by  these  barber-surgeons.  Dr.  Bandelier,  in 
his  article  on  Francisco  Bravo  in  the  second 
volume  of  the  Catholic  Encyclopedia,  calls  at- 
tention to  some  important  details  with  regard  to 
medicine  in  JNIexico  in  the  early  part  of  the  six- 
teenth century,  and  especially  to  this  distinguished 
physician  who  published  the  first  book  on  medi- 
cine in  that  city  in  1570. 

Three  years  before  that  time  Dr.  Pedrarius  de 
Benavides  had  published  his  "  Secretos  de  Chi- 
rurgia "  at  Valladolid,  in  Spain,  a  work  which 
had  been  written  in  America  and  contained  an 
immense  amount  of  knowledge  that  is  invaluable 
with  regard  to  Indian  medicinal  practice.  Dr. 
Bravo's  work,  however,  has  the  distinction  of  being 
the  first  medical  treatise  printed  in  America. 

The  issuance  of  these  books  shows  the  intense 
interest  in  medicine  in  the  sixteenth  century,  but 
there  are  other  details  which  serve  to  show  how 
thorough  and  practical  were  the  efforts  of  the 
authorities  in  securing  the  best  possible  medi- 
cal practice.  In  1524  there  was  founded  in  the 
City  of  Mexico  a  hospital,  which  still  stands  and 
which  was  a  model  in  its  way.     That  way  was 


ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION      325 

much  better  than  the  mode  of  the  construction 
of  hospitals  in  the  eighteenth  century,  for  in- 
stance, when  hospitals  and  care  for  the  ailing 
reached  the  lowest  ebb  in  modern  times.  Other 
hospitals  besides  this  foundation  by  Cortez  soon 
arose,  and  the  wards  of  these  hospitals  were 
used  for  purposes  of  clinical  teaching.  Clinical 
or  bedside  teaching  in  medicine  is  supposed  to  be 
a  comparatively  recent  feature  of  medical  educa- 
tion. There  are  traces  of  it,  however,  at  all  times 
in  history  and  while  at  times  when  theory  ruled 
the  practical  application  of  observation  waned,  it 
was  constantly  coming  back  whenever  men  took 
medical  education  seriously.  Its  employment  in 
Mexico  seems  to  have  been  an  obvious  develop- 
ment of  their  very  practical  methods,  which  began 
with  the  teaching  of  first  aid  to  the  injured  and 
developed  through  special  studies  of  the  particu- 
lar diseases  of  the  country  and  of  the  methods 
of  curing  them  by  native  drugs. 

A  chair  of  botany  existed  already  in  connec- 
tion with  the  university,  and  this,  with  the  lectures 
on  medicine,  constituted  the  medical  training  until 
1599,  when  a  second  medical  lectureship  was 
added.  During  the  course  of  the  next  twenty 
years  altogether  seven  chairs  in  medicine  were 
founded,  so  that  besides  the  two  lectureships  in 
medicine  there  was  a  chair  of  anatomy  and  sur- 
gery, a  special  chair  of  dissection,  a  chair  of 
therapeutics,  the  special  duty  of  which  was  to 
lecture    on    Galen    "  De    Methodo    Medendi,"    a 


326      ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION 

chair  of  mathematics  and  astrology,  for  the 
stars  were  supposed  to  influence  human  constitu- 
tions by  all  the  learned  men  of  this  time  and 
even  Kepler  and  Galileo  and  Tycho-Brahe  were 
within  this  decade  making  horoscopes  for  impor- 
tant people  in  Europe,  and,  finally,  a  chair  of 
prognostics.  Most  of  the  teaching  was  founded 
on  Hippocrates  and  Galen,  and  lest  this  should 
seem  sufficient  to  condemn  it  as  hopelessly  back- 
ward in  the  minds  of  many,  it  may  be  recalled 
that  during  the  century  following  this  time  Syden- 
ham, in  England,  and  Boerhaave,  in  Holland,  the 
most  distinguished  medical  men  of  their  time  and 
looked  on  with  great  reverence  by  the  teachers  of 
ours,  were  both  of  them  pleading  for  a  return  to 
Hippocrates  and  Galen.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
medical  school  of  the  University  of  Mexico  was 
furnishing  quite  as  good  a  medical  training  as  the 
average  medical  school  in  Europe  at  that  time,  at 
least  so  far  as  the  subjects  lectured  on  are  con- 
cerned. Indeed,  it  was  modelled  closely  after  the 
Spanish  universities,  which  were  considered  well 
up  to  the  standard  of  the  time. 

In  the  meantime  additional  chairs  in  university 
subjects  continued  to  be  founded.  Another  chair 
in  arts  was  established  in  1586,  and  further  chairs 
in  law  and  grammar  were  added  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  sixteenth  century.  The  Spanish 
Crown  was  very  much  interested  in  Mexican 
education,  and  King  Philip  II  of  Spain,  who  is 
usually   mentioned   in   English   history   for   quite 


ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION      327 

other  qualities  than  his  interest  in  culture  and 
education,  was  especially  liberal  in  his  provision 
from  the  Crown  revenues  of  funds  for  the  univer- 
sity. At  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, according  to  Flores  in  his  "  History  of 
Medicine  in  ^Mexico  from  the  Indian  Times  Down 
to  the  Present,"  the  total  amount  of  income  from 
the  Crown  allowed  the  University  of  Mexico  was 
nearly  $10,000.  This  was  about  Shakespeare's 
time,  and  so  we  have  readily  available  calcula- 
tions as  to  the  buying  power  of  money  at  that 
time  compared  to  our  own.  It  is  usually  said 
that  the  money  of  Elizabeth's  time  had  eight  to 
ten  times  the  trading  value  of  ours.  This  would 
mean  that  the  University  of  ^Mexico  had  nearly 
an  income  of  $100,000  apart  from  fees  and  other 
sources  of  revenue.  This  would  not  be  considered 
contemptible  even  in  our  own  day  for  a  university 
having  less  than  twenty  professorships. 

The  number  of  students  at  the  University  of 
Mexico  is  not  absolutely  known,  but,  as  we  have 
seen,  Professor  Bourne  calculates  that  the  Uni- 
versity of  Lima  had  at  the  beginning  of  the 
eighteenth  century  more  than  2,000  students. 
The  University  of  ]SIexico  at  the  same  time  prob- 
ably had  more  than  1,000  students,  and  both 
of  these  universities  were  larger  in  number  than 
any  institution  of  learning  within  the  boundaries 
of  the  present  United  States  until  after  the 
middle  of  the  nineteenth  century.  After  all,  we 
began  to  have  universities  in  the  real   sense  of 


328      ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION 

that  word — that  is,  educational  institutions  giving 
opportunities  in  undergraduate  work  and  the 
graduate  departments  of  law,  medicine  and  theol- 
ogy — not  until  nearly  the  end  of  the  first  quarter 
of  the  nineteenth  century.  Our  medical  and  law 
schools  did  not,  as  a  rule,  become  attached  to  our 
universities  until  the  second  half  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  and  even  late  in  that.  This  was 
to  the  serious  detriment  of  post-graduate  work, 
and  especially  detrimental  to  the  preliminary 
training  required  for  it,  and  consequently  to  the 
products  of  these  schools. 

Before  a  student  could  enter  one  of  the  post- 
graduate departments  at  the  University  of  Mexico 
in  law  or  medicine,  he  was  required  to  have  made 
at  least  three  years  of  studies  in  the  undergradu- 
ate departments.  When  we  contrast  this  regula- 
tion with  the  custom  in  the  United  States,  the  re- 
sult is  a  little  startling.  Until  the  last  quarter 
of  the  nineteenth  century  students  might  enter 
our  medical  schools  straight  from  the  plow  or  the 
smithy  or  the  mechanic's  bench,  and  without  any 
preliminary  education,  after  two  terms  of  medical 
lectures  consisting  of  four  months  each,  be  given 
a  degree  which  was  a  license  to  practise  medicine. 
The  abuses  of  such  a  system  are  manifest,  and 
actually  came  into  existence.  They  were  not 
permitted  in  Mexico  even  in  the  seventeenth 
century. 

It  might  perhaps  be  thought  that  these  mag- 
nificent opportunities  in  education  were  provided 


ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION      329 

only  for  the  higher  classes,  or  concerned  only 
book  learning  and  the  liberal  and  professional 
studies.  Far  from  any  such  exclusiveness  as  this, 
their  schools  were  thoroughly  rounded  and  gave 
instruction  in  the  arts  and  crafts  and  recognized 
the  value  of  manual  training.  We  have  only  come 
to  appreciate  in  the  last  few  decades  how  much 
we  have  lost  in  education  in  America  by  neglect- 
ing these  features  of  education  for  the  masses. 
While  Germany  has  manual  training  for  over  fifty 
per  cent,  of  the  children  who  go  to  her  schools, 
here  in  the  United  States  we  provide  it  for 
something  less  than  one  per  cent,  of  our  children. 
They  made  no  such  mistake  as  this  in  the  Spanish- 
American  countries.  Indeed,  Professor  Bourne's 
paragraph  on  this  subject  is  perhaps  the  most 
interesting  feature  of  what  he  has  to  say  with 
regard  to  education  in  Spanish  America.  The 
objective  methods  of  education,  as  he  depicts 
them,  the  thoroughly  practical  content  of  educa- 
tion, and  the  fact  that  the  Church  was  one  of  the 
main  factors  in  bringing  about  this  well-rounded 
education,  is  of  itself  a  startling  commentary  on 
the  curiously  perverted  notions  that  have  been 
held  in  the  past  with  regard  to  the  comparative 
value  of  education  in  Spanish  and  in  English 
America  and  the  attitude  of  the  Church  toward 
these  educational  questions: 

"  Both  the  Crown  and  the  Church  were  solici- 
tous for  education  in  the  colonies,  and  provisions 
were  made   for  its   promotion   on  a   far  greater 


330      ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION 

scale  than  was  possible  or  even  attempted  in 
the  English  colonies.  The  early  Franciscan  mis- 
sionaries built  a  school  beside  each  church,  and 
in  their  teaching  abundant  use  was  made  of  signs, 
drawings  and  paintings.  The  native  languages 
were  reduced  to  writing,  and  in  a  few  years  In- 
dians were  learning  to  read  and  write.  Pedro 
de  Gante,  a  Flemish  lay  brother  and  a  relative 
of  Charles  V,  founded  and  conducted  in  the  In- 
dian quarter  in  Mexico  a  great  school,  attended 
by  over  a  thousand  Indian  boys,  which  combined 
instruction  in  elementary  and  higher  branches, 
the  mechanical  and  fine  arts.  In  its  workshops 
the  boys  were  taught  to  be  tailors,  carpenters, 
blacksmiths,  shoemakers  and  painters." 

If  there  was  all  this  of  progress  in  education 
in  Spanish-American  countries  in  advance  of 
what  we  had  in  the  United  States,  people  will 
be  prone  to  ask  where,  then,  are  the  products 
of  the  Spanish- American  education?  This  is  only 
a  fair  question,  and  if  the  products  cannot  be 
shown,  their  education,  however  pretentious,  must 
have  been  merely  superficial  or  hollow,  and  must 
have  meant  nothing  for  the  culture  of  their 
people.  We  are  sure  that  most  people  would 
consider  the  question  itself  quite  sufficient  for 
argument,  for  it  would  be  supposed  to  be  un- 
answerable. 

Such  has  been  the  state  of  mind  created  by  his- 
tory as  it  Js  written  for  English-speaking  people, 
that  we  are  not  at  all  prepared  to  think  that  there 


ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION      331 

can  possibly  be  in  existence  certain  great  products 
of  Spanish-American  education  that  show  very 
clearly  how  much  better  educational  systems  were 
developed  in  Spanish  than  in  English  America. 
The  fact  that  we  do  not  know  them,  however, 
is  only  another  eWdence  of  the  one-sidedness  of 
American  education  in  the  North,  even  at  the 
present  time.  Our  whole  attitude  toward  the 
South  American  people,  our  complacent  self- 
sufficiency  from  which  we  look  down  on  them,  our 
thoroughgoing  condescension  for  their  ignorance 
and  backwardness,  is  all  founded  on  our  lack  of 
real  knowledge  with  regard  to  them. 

The  most  striking  product  of  South  American 
education  was  the  architectural  structures  which 
the  Spanish-American  people  erected  as  orna- 
ments of  their  towns,  memorials  of  their  culture 
and  evidences  of  their  education.  The  cathedrals 
in  the  Spanish  towns  of  South  America  and 
INIexico  are  structures,  as  a  rule,  fairly  comparable 
with  the  ecclesiastical  buildings  erected  by  towns 
of  the  same  size  in  Europe.  As  a  rule,  they  were 
planned  at  least  in  the  sixteenth  century,  and  most 
of  them  were  finished  in  the  seventeenth  century. 
Their  cathedrals  are  handsome  architectural  struc- 
tures worthy  of  their  faith  and  enduring  evidence 
of  their  taste  and  love  of  beauty.  The  ecclesiastical 
buildings,  the  houses  of  their  bishops  and  arch- 
bishops and  their  monasteries  were  worthy  of  their 
cathedrals  and  churches.  IMost  of  them  are  beau- 
tiful, all  of  them  are  dignified,  all  of  them  had 


322      ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION 

a  permanent  character  that  has  made  them  endure 
down  to  our  day  and  has  made  them  an  unfaihng 
ornament  of  the  towns  in  which  they  are.  Their 
municipal  buildings  partook  of  this  same  type. 
Some  of  them  are  very  handsome  structures.  Of 
their  universities  we  have  already  heard  that  they 
were  imposing  buildings  from  without,  hand- 
somely decorated  within. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  Spanish 
Americans  practically  invented  the  new  style  of 
architecture.  How  effective  that  style  is,  we  had 
abundant  opportunity  to  see  when  it  was  em- 
ployed for  the  building  of  the  Pan-American  Ex- 
position at  Buffalo.  That  style  is  essentially 
American.  It  is  the  only  new  thing  that  America 
has  contributed  to  construction  since  its  settle- 
ment. How  thoroughly  suitable  it  was  for  the 
climate  for  which  it  was  invented,  those  who 
have  had  experience  of  it  in  the  new  hotels  erected 
in  Florida,  in  the  last  decade  or  so,  can  judge 
very  well.  Many  of  its  effects  are  an  adaptation 
of  classical  formulae  to  buildings  for  the  warm, 
yet  uncertain  climate  of  many  parts  of  South 
America.  Some  of  the  old  monasteries  con- 
structed after  this  style  are  beautiful  examples 
of  architecture  in  every  sense  of  the  word.  If 
the  Spanish-American  monks  had  done  nothing 
else  but  leave  us  this  handsome  new  model  in 
architecture  they  would  not  have  lived  in  vain,  nor 
would  their  influence  in  American  life  have  been 
without  its  enduring  effects.      This   is   a  typical 


ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION      333 

product  of  the  higher  culture  of  the  South  Span- 
ish-American people. 

With  regard  to  the  churches,  it  may  be  said 
that  the  spirit  of  the  Puritans  was  entirely  op- 
posed to  anything  like  the  ornamentation  of  their 
churches,  and  that,  indeed,  these  were  not  churches 
in  the  usual  sense  of  the  word,  but  were  merely 
meeting  houses.  Hence  there  was  not  the  same 
impulse  to  make  them  beautiful  as  lifted  the  Span- 
ish Americans  into  their  magnificent  expressions 
of  architectural  beauty.  On  the  other  hand,  there 
are  other  buildings  in  regard  to  which,  if  there 
had  been  any  real  culture  in  the  minds  of  the 
English  Americans,  we  have  a  right  to  expect 
some  beauty  as  well  as  usefulness.  If  we  con- 
trast for  a  moment  the  hospitals  of  English  and 
Spanish  America  the  difference  is  so  striking  as  to 
show  the  lack  of  some  important  quality  in  the 
minds  of  the  builders  at  the  north.  Spanish- 
American  hospitals  are  among  the  beautiful  struc- 
tures with  which  they  began  to  adorn  their  towns 
early,  and  some  of  them  remain  at  the  present 
day  as  examples  of  the  architectural  taste  of  their 
builders.  They  were  usually  low,  often  of  but 
one  story  in  height,  with  a  courtyard  and  with 
ample  porticos  for  convalescents,  and  thick  walls 
to  defend  them  from  the  heat  of  the  climate.  In 
many  features  they  surpass  many  hospitals  that 
have  been  built  in  America  until  very  recent 
years.  They  were  modelled  on  the  old  mediaeval 
hospitals,   some  of  which  are  very  beautiful  ex- 


334      ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION 

amples  of  how  to  build  places  for  the  care  of  the 
ailing. 

Contrast  for  a  moment  with  this  the  state  of 
affairs  that  has  existed  with  regard  to  our  church 
buildings  and  our  public  structures  of  all  kinds 
in  North  America,  down  to  the  latter  half  of 
the  nineteenth  century.  We  have  no  buildings 
dating  from  before  the  nineteenth  century  that 
have  any  pretension  to  architectural  beauty. 
They  were  built  merely  for  utility.  Some  of  them 
still  have  an  interest  for  us  because  of  historical 
associations,  but  they  are  a  standing  evidence  of 
the  lack  of  taste  of  our  Anglo-Saxon  ancestors. 
The  English  poet,  Yeats,  said  at  a  little  dinner 
given  to  him  just  before  he  left  this  country  ten 
years  ago,  that  no  nation  can  pretend  to  being 
cultured  until  the  very  utensils  in  the  kitchen  are 
beautiful  as  well  as  useful.  What  is  to  be  said, 
then,  of  a  nation  that  erects  public  buildings  that 
are  to  be  merely  useful?  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
most  of  them  were  barracks.  The  American  peo- 
ple woke  up  somewhat  in  the  nineteenth  century, 
but  the  awakening  was  very  slow.  A  few  hand- 
some structures  were  erected,  but  it  is  not  until 
the  last  decade  or  two  that  we  have  been  able  to 
awaken  public  taste  to  the  necessity  for  having 
all  our  public  buildings  beautiful  as  well  as  useful. 

The  effect  of  this  taste  for  structural  beauty  on 
the  appearance  of  the  streets  of  their  towns  was 
an  important  element  in  making  them  very  dif- 
ferent from  our  cramped  and  narrow  pathways. 


ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION      335 

The  late  Mr.  Ernest  Crosby  once  expressed  this 
very  emphatically  in  an  after-dinner  speech,  by 
detailing  his  experience  with  regard  to  Havana. 
He  had  visited  the  Cuban  capital  some  twenty 
years  ago,  and  found  it  very  picturesque  in  its 
old  Spanish  ways.  It  is  true  the  streets  were  dirty 
and  the  death-rate  was  somewhat  high,  but  the 
vista  that  you  saw  when  you  came  around  the 
corner  of  a  street,  was  not  the  same  that  you  had 
seen  around  every  other  corner  for  twenty  miles; 
it  was  different.  It  was  largely  a  city  of  homes, 
with  some  thought  of  life  being  made  happy, 
rather  than  merely  being  laborious.  It  was  a 
place  to  live  in  and  enjoy  life  while  it  lasted,  and 
not  merely  a  place  to  exist  in  and  make  money. 
He  came  north  by  land.  The  first  town  that  he 
struck  on  the  mainland,  he  said,  reminded  him  of 
Hoboken.  Every  other  town  that  he  struck  in  the 
North  reminded  him  more  and  more  of  Hoboken, 
until  he  came  to  the  immortal  Hoboken  itself. 
The  American  end  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  idea 
seemed  to  him  to  make  all  the  towns  like  Ho- 
boken as  far  as  possible.  There  is  only  one  town 
in  this  country  that  is  not  like  Hoboken,  and 
that  is  Washington;  and  whenever  we  let  the 
politicians  work  their  wills  on  that — witness  the 
Pension  Building — it  has  a  tendency  to  grow 
more  and  more  like  Hoboken.  Perhaps  we  shall 
be  able  to  save  it.  As  for  Havana,  he  said  he 
understood  that  the  death-rate  had  been  cut  in 
two,   and  that  yellow   fever   was   no   longer  epi- 


336      ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION 

demic  there,  but  he  understood  also  that  the  town 
was  growing  more  and  more  Hke  Hoboken,  so 
that  he  scarcely  dared  go  back  to  see  it. 

The  parable  has  a  lesson  that  is  well  worth 
driving  home  for  our  people,  for  it  emphasizes 
a  notable  lack  of  culture  among  the  American 
people,  which  did  not  exist  among  the  Spanish 
Americans,  a  lack  which  we  did  not  realize  until 
the  last  decade  or  two,  though  it  is  an  important 
index  of  true  culture.  The  hideous  buildings  that 
we  have  allowed  ourselves  to  live  in  in  America, 
and,  above  all,  that  we  have  erected  as  represent- 
ing the  dignity  of  city,  and  only  too  often  even 
of  state,  together  with  the  awful  evidence  of  graft, 
whenever  an  attempt  has  been  made  to  correct 
this  false  taste  and  erect  something  worthy  of  us, 
the  graft  usually  spoiling  to  a  very  great  extent 
our  best  purposes,  proclaim  an  absence  of  culture 
in  American  life  that  amounts  to  a  conviction  of 
failure  of  our  education  to  be  liberal  in  the  true 
sense  of  the  word. 

There  were  other  products  of  Spanish- American 
education  quite  as  striking  as  the  architectural 
beauties  with  which  Mexicans  and  South  Ameri- 
cans adorned  their  towns.  Quite  as  interesting, 
indeed,  as  their  architecture  is  their  literature. 
Ordinarily  we  are  apt  to  assume  that  because  we 
have  heard  almost  nothing  of  Spanish- American 
literature,  there  must  be  very  little  of  it,  and 
what  little  there  is  must  have  very  little  signifi- 
cance.   This  is  only  another  one  of  these  examples 


ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION      337 

of  how  ridiculous  it  is  to  know  something  "  that 
ain't  so."  Spanish- American  hterature  is  very  rich. 
It  begins  very  earlj^  in  the  history  of  the  Spanish 
settlement.  It  is  especially  noteworthy  for  its 
serious  products,  and  when  the  world's  account 
of  the  enduring  literature  of  the  past  four  cen- 
turies will  be  made  up  much  more  of  what  was 
written  in  South  America  will  live  than  what  has 
been  produced  in  North  America.  This  seems 
quite  unpatriotic,  but  it  is  only  an  expression  of 
proper  estimation  of  values,  without  any  of  that 
amusing  self-complacency  which  so  commonly 
characterizes  North  American  estimation  of  any- 
thing that  is  done  by  our  people. 

South  American  literature,  in  the  best  sense  of 
that  much  abused  term,  begins  shortly  after  the 
middle  of  the  sixteenth  century,  with  the  writing 
of  the  Spanish  poet,  Ercilla's,  epic,  "  Araucana," 
which  was  composed  in  South  America  during  the 
decade  from  1550  to  1560.  This  is  a  literary 
work  of  genuine  merit,  that  has  attracted  the  at- 
tention of  critics  and  scholars  of  all  kinds  and 
has  given  its  author  a  significant  place  even  in 
the  limited  field  of  epic  poetry  among  the  few 
great  names  that  the  world  cares  to  recall  in  this 
literary  mode.  Voltaire  considered  this  epic  poem 
a  great  contribution  to  literature,  and  in  the 
prefatorial  essay  to  his  own  epic,  the  "  Henriade," 
he  praises  it  very  highly.  The  poem  takes  its 
name  from  the  Araucanos  Indians,  who  had  risen 
in   revolt    against   the    Spaniards   in    Chile,    and 


338      ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION 

against  whom  the  poet  served  for  nearly  ten  years. 
He  did  not  learn  to  despise  them,  and  while  the 
literature  which  does  justice  to  the  lofty  senti- 
ments which  sometimes  flowed  from  mouths  of 
great  Indian  chiefs,  is  supposed  to  be  much  more 
recent,  Ercilla's  most  enthusiastically  extolled  pas- 
sage is  the  noble  speech  which  he  has  given  to 
the  aged  chief,  Colocolo,  in  the  "  Araucana." 

The  expedition  against  the  Araucanos  inspired 
two  other  fine  poems — that  of  Pedro  de  Ona, 
"  Arauco  Domado,"  written  near  the  end  of  the 
century,  and  "  Araucana,"  written  by  Diego  de 
Santisteban,  whose  poem  also  saw  the  light  before 
the  seventeenth  century  opened.  A  fourth  poet, 
Juan  de  Castellanos,  better  than  either  of  these, 
wrote  "  Elegias  de  Varones  Ilustres  de  Indias." 
He  was  a  priest  who  had  served  in  America,  and 
who  remembered  some  of  the  magnificent  traits  of 
the  Indians  that  he  had  observed  during  his  life 
among  them,  and  made  them  the  subject  of  his 
poetry.  This  was  only  the  beginning  of  a  serious 
Spanish-American  literature,  that  has  continued 
ever  since.  Father  Charles  Warren  Currier,  in 
a  series  of  lectures  at  the  Catholic  Summer 
School  three  years  ago,  did  not  hesitate  to  say 
that  the  body  of  Spanish- American  literature  was 
much  larger  and  much  more  important,  and  much 
more  of  it  was  destined  to  endure  than  of  our 
English-American  literature.  In  the  light  of 
what  these  Spaniards  had  done  for  education  in 
their  universities,   and  for  the  beauty  of  life  in 


ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION      339 

their  cities  by  their  architecture,  this  is  not  so  sur- 
prising a  saying  as  it  might  otherwise  be.  All 
of  these  things  stand  together  and  are  confirma- 
tions one  of  the  other. 

The  most  interesting  product  of  Spanish- 
American  education,  however, — the  one  which 
shows  that  it  really  stood  for  a  higher  civilization 
than  ours, — remains  to  be  spoken  of.  It  consists 
of  their  treatment  of  the  Indians.  From  the  very 
beginning,  as  we  have  just  shown,  their  literature 
in  Spanish  America  did  justice  to  the  Indians. 
They  saw  his  better  traits.  It  is  true  they  had  a 
better  class  of  Indians,  as  a  rule,  to  deal  with, 
but  there  is  no  doubt  also  that  they  did  much  to 
keep  him  on  a  higher  level,  while  everything  in 
North  America  that  was  done  by  the  settlers  was 
prone  to  reduce  the  native  in  the  scale  of  civiliza- 
tion. He  was  taught  the  vices  and  not  the  virtues 
of  civilization,  and  little  was  attempted  to  uplift 
him.  Just  as  the  literary  men  were  interested  in 
the  better  side  of  his  character,  so  the  Spanish- 
American  scientists  were  interested  in  his  folk- 
lore, in  his  medicine,  in  his  arts  and  crafts,  in  his 
ethnology  and  anthropology — in  a  word,  in  all 
that  North  Americans  have  only  come  to  be  inter- 
ested in  during  the  nineteenth  century.  Books  on 
all  these  subjects  were  published,  and  now  consti- 
tute a  precious  fund  of  knowledge  with  regard  to 
the  aborigines  that  would  have  been  lost  only  for 
the  devotion  of  Spanish- American  scholars. 

It  is  not  surprising,  then,  that  the  Indian  him- 


340      ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION 

self,  with  all  this  interest  in  him,  did  not  dis- 
appear, as  in  North  America,  but  has  remained 
to  constitute  the  basis  of  South  American  peo- 
ples. If  the  South  American  peoples  are  behind 
our  own  in  anything,  it  is  because  large  elements 
in  them  have  been  raised  from  a  state  of  semi- 
barbarism  into  civilization,  while  our  people  have 
all  come  from  nations  that  were  long  civilized  and 
we  have  none  at  all  of  the  natives  left.  Wherever 
the  English  went  always  the  aborigines  disap- 
peared before  them.  The  story  is  the  same  in  New 
Zealand  and  Australia  as  it  is  in  North  America, 
and  it  would  be  the  same  in  India,  only  for  the 
teeming  millions  that  live  in  that  peninsula,  for 
whom  Anglo-Saxon  civilization  has  never  meant 
an  uplift  in  any  sense  of  the  word,  but  rather 
the  contrary.  The  white  man's  burden  has  been 
to  carry  the  Indian,  instilling  into  him  all  the 
vices,  until  no  longer  he  could  cling  to  his  shifty 
master  and  was  shaken  off  to  destruction. 

This  story  of  the  contrast  of  the  treatment  of 
the  Indian  at  the  North  and  the  South  is  prob- 
ably the  best  evidence  for  the  real  depth  of  cul- 
ture that  the  magnificent  education  of  the  Span- 
iards, so  early  and  so  thoroughly  organized  in 
their  colonies,  accomplished  for  this  continent. 
Alone  it  would  stand  as  the  highest  possible 
evidence  of  the  interest  of  the  Spanish  Govern- 
ment and  the  Spanish  Church  in  the  organiza- 
tion not  only  of  education,  but  of  government  in 
such  a  way  as  to  bring  happiness  and  uplift  for 


ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION      341 

both  natives  and  colonists  in  the  Spanish- Amer- 
ican countries.  Abuses  there  were,  as  there  al- 
ways will  be  where  men  are  concerned  and  where 
a  superior  race  comes  in  contact  with  an  in- 
ferior. These  abuses,  however,  were  exceptions 
and  not  the  rule.  The  policy  instituted  by  the 
Spaniards  and  maintained  in  spite  of  the  tenden- 
cies of  men  to  degenerate  into  tyranny  and  mis- 
use of  the  natives  is  well  worthy  of  admiration. 
English-speaking  history  has  known  very  little  of 
it  until  comparativiely  recent  years.  Mr.  Sidney 
Lee,  the  editor  of  the  English  Biographical  Dic- 
tionary and  the  author  of  a  series  of  works  on 
Shakespeare  which  has  gained  for  him  recogni- 
tion as  probably  the  best  living  authority  on  the 
history  of  the  Elizabethan  times,  wrote  a  series 
of  articles  which  appeared  in  Scrihner's  last  year 
on  "  The  Call  of  the  West."  This  was  meant  to 
undo  much  of  the  prejudice  which  exists  in  regard 
to  Spanish  colonization  in  this  country  and  to 
mitigate  the  undue  reverence  in  which  the  Eng- 
lish explorers  and  colonists  have  been  held  by 
comparison.  There  seems  every  reason  to  think, 
then,  that  this  newer,  truer  view  of  history  is 
gradually  going  to  find  its  way  into  circulation. 
In  the  meantime  it  is  amusing  to  look  back  and 
realize  how  much  prejudice  has  been  allowed  to 
warp  English  history  in  this  matter,  and  how,  as 
a  consequence  of  the  determined,  deliberate  efforts 
to  blacken  the  Spanish  name,  we  have  had  to 
accept  as  history  exactly  the  opposite  view  to  the 


342      ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION 

reality  in  this  matter.  Lest  we  should  be  thought 
to  be  exaggerating,  we  venture  to  quote  one  of 
the  opening  paragraphs  of  Mr.  Sidney  Lee's 
article  as  it  appeared  in  Scribner's  for  May, 
1907:  "Especially  has  theological  bias  justified 
neglect  or  facilitated  misconception  of  Spain's 
role  in  the  sixteenth  century  drama  of  American 
history.  Spain's  initial  adventures  in  the  New 
World  are  often  consciously  or  unconsciously 
overlooked  or  underrated  in  order  that  she  may 
figure  on  the  stage  of  history  as  the  benighted 
champion  of  a  false  and  obsolete  faith,  which  was 
vanquished  under  divine  protecting  Providence 
by  English  defenders  of  the  true  religion.  Many 
are  the  hostile  critics  who  have  painted  sixteenth 
century  Spain  as  the  avaricious  accumulator  of 
American  gold  and  silver,  to  which  she  had  no 
right,  as  the  monopolist  of  American  trade,  of 
which  she  robbed  others,  and  as  the  oppressor  and 
exterminator  of  the  weak  and  innocent  aborigines 
of  the  new  continent  who  deplored  her  presence 
among  them.  Cruelty  in  all  its  hideous  forms  is, 
indeed,  commonly  set  forth  as  Spain's  only  in- 
strument of  rule  in  her  sixteenth  century  empire. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  English  adventurer  has 
been  credited  by  the  same  pens  with  a  touching 
humanity,  with  the  purest  religious  aspirations, 
with  a  romantic  courage  which  was  always  at  the 
disposal    of   the    oppressed   native. 

"  No  such  picture  is  recognized  when  we  apply 
the    touchstone    of    the    oral    traditions,    printed 


ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION      343 

books,  maps  and  manuscripts  concerning  America 
which  circulated  in  Shakespeare's  England. 
There  a  predilection  for  romantic  adventure  is 
found  to  sway  the  Spaniards  in  even  greater 
degree  than  it  swayed  the  Elizabethan.  Re- 
ligious zeal  is  seen  to  inspirit  the  Spaniards  more 
constantly  and  conspicuously  than  it  stimulated 
his  English  contemporary.  The  motives  of  each 
nation  are  barely  distinguishable  one  from  an- 
other. Neither  deserves  to  be  credited  with  any 
monopoly  of  virtue  or  vice.  Above  all,  the  study 
of  contemporary  authorities  brings  into  a  dazzling 
light  which  illumes  every  corner  of  the  picture  the 
commanding  facts  of  the  Spaniard's  priority  as 
explorer,  as  scientific  navigator,  as  conqueror,  as 
settler." 

Here  is  magnificent  praise  from  one  who  can- 
not be  suspected  of  national  or  creed  affinities  to 
bias  his  judgment.  He  has  studied  the  facts  and 
not  the  prejudiced  statements  of  his  countrymen. 
The  more  carefully  the  work  of  the  Spaniards  in 
America  during  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries  is  studied,  the  more  praise  is  bestowed 
upon  them.  The  more  a  writer  knows  of  actual 
conditions  the  more  does  he  feel  poignantly  the 
injustice  that  has  been  done  by  the  Protestant 
tradition  which  abused  the  good  that  was  accom- 
plished by  the  Catholic  Spanish  and  which  neg- 
lected, distorted  and  calumniated  his  deeds  and 
motives.  This  bit  of  Protestant  tradition  is,  after 
all,  only  suffering  the  fate  that  every  other  Prot- 


344      ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION 

estant  position  has  undergone  during  the  course  of 
the  development  of  scientific  historical  criticism. 
Every  step  toward  the  newer,  truer  history  has 
added  striking  details  to  the  picture  of  the  benefi- 
cent influences  of  the  Church  upon  her  people 
in  every  way.  It  has  shown  up  pitilessly  the 
subterfuges,  the  misstatements  and  the  positive 
ignorance  which  have  enabled  Protestantism  to 
maintain  the  opposite  impression  in  people's 
minds  in  order  to  show  how  impossible  was 
agreement  with  the  Catholic  Church,  since  it 
stood  for  backwardness  and  ignorance  and  utter 
lack  of  sympathy  with  intellectual  development. 
Now  we  find  everywhere  that  just  the  opposite 
was  true.  Whenever  the  Reformation  had  the 
opportunity  to  exert  itself  to  the  full,  education 
and  culture  suffered.  Erasmus  said  in  his  time, 
"  Wherever  Lutheranism  reigns  there  is  an  end 
of  hterature."  Churches  and  cathedrals  that  used 
to  be  marvellous  expressions  of  the  artistic  and 
poetic  feeling  of  the  people  became  the  ugliest 
kind  of  mere  meeting  houses.  Rev.  Augustus 
Jessop,  himself  an  Anglican  clergyman,  tells  how 
"  art  died  out  in  rural  England  "  after  the  Refor- 
mation, which  he  calls  The  Great  Pillage,  and 
"  King  Whitewash  and  Queen  Ugliness  ruled 
supreme  for  centuries."  The  same  thing  hap- 
pened in  Germany,  and  education  was  affected 
quite  as  much  as  art.  German  national  develop- 
ment was  delayed,  and  she  has  come  to  take  her 
place  in  world  influence  only  in  the  nineteenth 


ORIGINS  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION      345 

century,  after  most  of  the  influence  of  the  reHgious 
revolt  led  by  Luther  in  the  sixteenth  century  has 
passed  away.  These  are  but  a  few  of  the  striking 
differences  in  recent  history  that  are  so  well 
typified  by  the  contrast  between  what  was  ac- 
complished for  art  and  culture  and  architecture 
and  education  by  the  Catholic  Spaniard  and  the 
English  Protestant  here  in  America  during  the 
sixteenth,  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries. 
Truth  is  coming  to  her  own  at  last,  and  it  is  in  the 
history  of  education  particularly  that  advances 
are  being  made  which  change  the  whole  aspect  of 
the  significance  of  history  during  the  past  350 
years. 


THE  MEDICAL  PROFESSION  FOR  SIX 
THOUSAND  YEARS 


"  Tu  recte  vivis  si  curas  esse  quod  audis ; 
Neve  putes  alium  sapiente  bonoque  beatum." 
— Horace,  Ep.,  1,  16. 

[You  are  living  right  if  you  take  care  to  be  what  peo- 
ple say  you  are.  Do  not  imagine  that  any  one  who  is 
really  happy  is  other  than  wise  and  good.] 

"  Quod  ipse  sis,  non  quod  habearis,  interest." — Publius 

Syrus. 
[The  question  is  what  you  are,  not  what  you  are  thought 

to  be.] 

"  May  you  so  raise  your  character,  that  you  may  help 
to  make  the  next  age  a  better  thing,  and  leave  posterity 
in  your  debt  for  the  advantage  it  shall  receive  by  your 
example." — Lord  Halifax. 


THE  MEDICAL  PROFESSION  FOR  SIX 
THOUSAND  YEARS  * 

I  HAVE  felt  that  the  first  graduation  of  the 
youngest  of  the  medical  schools  might  very  well 
be  occupied  with  the  consideration  of  the  place 
of  the  medical  profession  in  history.  We  are 
rather  apt  in  the  modern  time  to  neglect  the 
lessons  of  history  and,  above  all,  of  the  history 
of  science,  first  because  it  is  not  always  easy  to 
get  definite  information  with  regard  to  it,  and 
secondly  and  mainly  because  we  are  likely  to 
imagine  that  scientific  and  medical  history  can 
mean  very  little  for  us.  In  America  particularly 
we  have  neglected  the  history  of  medicine  and  it 
has  been  one  of  the  definite  efforts  at  Fordham 
University  School  of  Medicine  to  renew  interest  in 
this  subject.  It  is  entirely  too  important  to  be 
neglected  and  it  has  valuable  lessons  for  all  gen- 
erations, but  especially  for*  a  generation  so  occu- 
pied with  itself,  that  it  does  not  properly  consider 
the  claims  of  the  past  to  recognition  for  fine  work 
accomplished,  and  for  the  exhibition  of  some  of 
the  best  qualities  of  the  human  intellect  in  the 
pursuit  of  scientific  and  practical  medical  knowl- 
edge in  previous  generations. 

*  This  was  the  address  to  the  graduates  at  the  First  Commencement 
of  the  Fordham  University  School  of  Medicine,  June  9,  1909. 

349 


350     MEDICINE  FOR  SIX  THOUSAND  YEARS 

At  the  earliest  dawn  of  history  we  find  institu- 
tions called  temples  in  which  men  were  being 
treated  for  their  ailments.  Those  who  treated 
them  we  have  been  accustomed  to  speak  of  as 
priests.  And  such  they  were,  since  their  func- 
tions included  the  direction  of  religious  services. 
These  religious  services,  however,  were  not  the 
exercises  of  religion  as  we  know  them  now,  but 
were  special  services  meant  to  propitiate  certain 
gods  who  were  supposed  to  rule  over  health  and 
disease.  There  were  other  kinds  of  temples  be- 
sides these.  We  still  talk  of  temples  of  justice 
meaning  our  law  courts,  and  our  phrase  comes 
from  an  older  time  when  people  went  to  have 
their  differences  of  opinion  adjudicated  by  men 
who  conducted  the  services  of  praise  and  prayer 
for  particular  deities  who  were  supposed  to  mete 
out  justice  to  men,  but  the  temple  attendants 
were  at  the  same  time  expert  in  deciding  causes, 
knowing  right  and  wrong,  wise  in  declaring  how 
justice  should  be  done.  These  early  temples,  then, 
in  which  the  ailing  were  treated  and  over  which 
experts  in  disease  and  its  treatment  presided, 
were  not  temples  in  our  modern  sense,  but  were 
much  like  hospitals  as  we  know  them  now.  They 
would  remind  us  of  the  hospitals  conducted  by 
religious  orders,  trained  to  care  for  the  illnesses 
of  mankind  and  yet  deeply  interested  in  the  wor- 
ship of  God. 

Human  institutions  are  never  so  different  from 
one  another,  even  in  spite  of  long  distance  of  time 


MEDICINE  FOR  SIX  THOUSAND  YEARS      351 

or  place,  as  they  are  usually  presumed  to  be. 
Men  and  women  have  not  changed  in  all  the 
period  of  human  history  that  we  know,  and  their 
modes  and  ways  of  life  often  have  a  startling 
similarity  if  we  but  find  the  key  for  the  signifi- 
cance of  customs  that  seem  to  be  very  different. 
These  temples  of  the  gods  of  health  and  of  dis- 
ease, then,  were  places  where  patients  congre- 
gated and  men  studied  diseases  for  generations, 
and  passed  on  their  knowledge  from  one  to  an- 
other, and  accumulated  information,  and  elabo- 
rated theories,  and  came  to  conclusions,  often 
on  insufficient  premises,  and  did  many  other 
things  that  we  are  doing  at  the  present  time. 
The  medical  profession  is  directly  descended  from 
these  institutions.  They  are  among  the  oldest 
that  we  know  of  in  human  history.  These  special 
temples  are  only  a  little  less  ancient  than  other 
forms  of  temples  if,  indeed,  they  were  not  the 
first  to  be  founded,  for  man's  first  most  clamorous 
reason  for  appeal  to  the  gods  has  ever  been  him- 
self and  his  own  health. 

With  the  reception  of  your  diplomas  this  even- 
ing you  now  belong  to  what  is  therefore  prob- 
ably the  oldest  profession  in  the  world.  In  wel- 
coming you  into  it  let  me  call  your  attention  par- 
ticularly to  the  fact  that  the  history  of  our  pro- 
fession can  be  traced  back  to  the  very  beginning 
of  the  course  of  time,  for  as  long  as  we  have  any 
account  of  men's  actions  in  an  organized  social 
order. 


352      MEDICINE  FOR  SIX  THOUSAND  YEARS 

We  are  very  prone  in  the  modern  time  to  think 
that  what  we  are  doing  in  each  successive  genera- 
tion is  of  so  much  greater  significance  than  what 
was  accomplished  before  our  time  that  it  is  really 
scarcely  worth  while  to  give  much  attention  to 
the  past.  This  self-sufficient  complacency  with 
regard  to  the  present  would  be  quite  unbearable 
only  that  each  successive  generation  in  its  turn 
has  had  the  same  tendency  and  has  expiated  its 
fault  by  being  thought  little  of  by  subsequent 
generations.  We  shall  have  our  turn  with  those 
we  affect  to  despise. 

It  is  supposed  to  be  particularly  true  in  every 
department  of  science  and,  above  all,  in  medicine 
that  there  is  such  a  wide  chasm  between  what  we 
are  doing  now  and  what  was  accomplished  by  our 
forebears,  no  matter  how  intelligent  they  were  in 
the  long  ago,  that  to  occupy  ourselves  seriously 
with  the  history  of  medicine  may  be  a  pleasant 
occupation  for  an  elderly  physician  who  has  noth- 
ing better  to  do,  but  can  mean  very  little  for  the 
young  man  entering  upon  practice  or  for  the 
physician  busy  with  his  patients.  Medical  his- 
tory may  be  good  enough  for  some  book-worm 
interested  in  dry-as-dust  details  for  their  own 
sake  and  perhaps  because  he  rejoices  in  the  fact 
that  other  people  do  not  know  them,  but  can 
have  very  little  significance  for  the  up-to-date 
physician.  This  is  an  impression  that  is  dying 
hard  just  now,  but  it  is  dying.  We  are  learn- 
ing  that   there    is    very    little    that    we    are    do- 


MEDICINE  FOR  SIX  THOUSAND  YEARS      353 

ing  even  now  that  has  not  been  done  before  us 
and  that,  above  all,  the  great  physicians,  no 
matter  how  long  ago  they  wrote,  always  have 
precious  lessons  for  us  that  we  cannot  afford  to 
neglect,  even  though  they  be  300  or  600  or  1,800 
or  even  2,500  years  ago.  At  all  of  these  dates 
in  the  past  there  were  physicians  whose  works 
will  never  die. 

In  every  department  of  human  history  the  im- 
pression that  we  are  the  only  ones  whose  work  is 
significant  has  been  receiving  a  sad  jolt  in  recent 
years,  and  perhaps  in  no  branch  of  science  is 
this  so  true  as  in  medicine.  We  are  coming  to 
realize  how  much  the  physicians  and  surgeons  of 
long  distant  times  accomplished,  and,  above  all, 
we  are  learning  to  appreciate  that  they  ap- 
proached problems  in  medicine  at  many  periods 
of  medical  history  in  the  best  scientific  temper  of 
the  modern  time.  Of  course  there  were  abuses, 
but,  then,  the  Lord  knows,  there  are  abuses  now. 
Of  course  their  therapeutics  had  many  absurdities 
in  it,  but,  then,  let  us  not  forget  that  Professor 
Charles  Richet,  the  director  of  the  department 
of  physiology  at  the  University  of  Paris,  de- 
clared not  long  ago  in  an  article  in  the  best 
known  of  French  magazines,  the  Revue  des  Deux 
MondeSj,  that  the  therapeutics  of  any  generation 
of  the  world's  history  always  contained  many 
absurdities — for  the  second  succeeding  genera- 
tion. The  curious  thing  about  it  is  that  some 
of    these    supposed    absurdities    afterward    come 


354      MEDICINE  FOR  SIX  THOUSAND  YEARS 

back  into  vogue  and  prove  to  be  precious  germs 
of  discovery,  or  remedies  of  value  that  occasion- 
ally even  develop  into  excellent  systems  of  treat- 
ment. 

Of  course  there  were  superstitions  in  the  old 
days,  but,  then,  there  have  been  superstitions  in 
medicine  at  all  times.  Any  one  who  thinks  that 
we  are  without  superstitions  in  medicine  at  the 
present  time,  superstitions  that  are  confidently 
accepted  by  many  regular  practising  physicians, 
must,  indeed,  be  innocent.  A  superstition  is  in  its 
etymology  a  survival.  It  comes  from  the  Latin 
superstes,  a  survivor.  It  is  the  acceptance  of 
some  doctrine  the  reasons  for  which  have  dis- 
appeared in  the  progress  of  knowledge  or  the  de- 
velopment of  science,  though  the  doctrine  itself 
still  maintains  a  hold  on  the  minds  of  man. 
Superstition  has  nothing  necessarily  to  do  with 
religion,  though  it  is  with  regard  to  religion  that 
doctrines  are  particularly  apt  to  be  accepted 
after  the  reasons  for  them  have  disappeared.  In 
medicine,  however,  superstitions  are  almost  as 
conmion  as  in  religion.  I  shall  never  forget  a  dis- 
cussion with  two  of  the  most  prominent  physicians 
of  this  country  on  this  subject. 

One  of  them  was  our  greatest  pathologist,  the 
other  a  great  teacher  of  clinical  medicine,  who 
came  into  medicine  through  chemistry  and  there- 
fore had  a  right  to  opinions  with  regard  to  the 
chemical  side  of  medicine.  We  had  been  discuss- 
ing  the   question   of   how   much   serious    medical 


MEDICINE  FOR  SIX  THOUSAND  YEARS      355 

education  there  was  in  the  Middle  Ages  and  how, 
in  spite  of  the  magnificent  work  done,  so  many 
superstitions  in  medicine  continued  to  maintain 
themselves.  I  remarked  that  it  seemed  impossible 
to  teach  truths  lo  large  bodies  of  men  without 
having  them  accept  certain  doctrines  which  they 
thought  truths  but  which  were  only  theories  and 
which  they  insisted  on  holding  after  the  reasons 
for  them  had  passed  away.  I  even  ventured  to 
say  that  I  thought  that  there  were  as  many  super- 
stitions now,  and  such  as  there  were,  were  of  as 
great  significance  as  those  that  maintained  them- 
selves in  the  Middle  Ages.  My  chemical  clinician 
brother  on  the  right  side  said,  "  Let  us  not  forget 
in  this  regard  the  hold  the  uric  acid  diathesis  has 
on  the  English-speaking  medical  profession."  And 
the  brother  pathologist  on  the  left  side:  "Well, 
and  what  shall  we  say  of  intestinal  auto-intoxica- 
tion? " 

Perhaps  you  will  not  realize  all  the  force  of 
these  expressions  at  the  present  time,  but  after 
you  have  been  five  years  in  the  practice  of  medi- 
cine and  have  been  flooded  by  the  literature  of 
the  advertising  manufacturing  pharmacist  and 
by  the  samples  of  the  detail  man  and  his  advice 
and  suggestion  of  principles  of  practice,  if  you 
will  listen  to  them,  perhaps  you  will  appreciate 
how  much  such  frank  expressions  mean  as  por- 
traying the  medical  superstitions  of  our  time. 

Surely  we  who  have  for  years  been  much 
occupied  with  the  superstition,   for   such  it  now 


356     MEDICINE  FOR  SIX  THOUSAND  YEARS 

turns  out  to  be,  of  heredity  in  medicine,  will  not 
be  supercilious  toward  older  generations  and  their 
superstitions.  Until  a  few  years  ago  we  were 
perfectly  sure  that  a  number  of  diseases  were 
inherited  directly.  Tuberculosis,  rheumatism, 
gout,  various  nutritional  disturbances  all  were 
supposed  to  pass  from  father  to  son  and  from 
mother  to  daughter,  or  sometimes  to  cross  the 
sex  line.  For  a  time  cancer  was  deemed  to  be 
surely  hereditary  to  some  degree  at  least.  Now 
most  of  us  know  that  probably  no  disease  is 
directly  inherited,  that  acquired  characters  are 
almost  surely  not  transmitted,  and  that  while 
defects  may  be  the  subject  of  heredity,  disease 
never  is.  Not  only  this,  biological  investigations 
have  served  to  show  that  what  is  the  subject  of 
inheritance  is  just  the  opposite, — resistance  to 
disease.  A  person  whose  father  and  mother  had 
suffered  from  tuberculosis  used  to  think  it  almost 
inevitable  that  he  too  should  suffer  from  it.  If 
they  had  died  that  he  too  would  die.  Our  experts 
in  tuberculosis  declare  now,  that  if  tuberculosis 
has  existed  in  the  preceding  generation  there  is 
a  much  better  chance  of  the  patient  recovering 
from  it,  or  at  least  resisting  it  for  a  long  time, 
than  if  there  had  been  no  tuberculosis  in  the 
family.  We  had  been  harboring  the  superstition 
of  heredity,  the  surviver  opinion  from  a  preceding 
generation,  until  we  learned  better  by  observa- 
tion. 

Let   us  turn   from   such   discussion  to   the   be- 


MEDICINE  FOR  SIX  THOUSAND  YEARS     357 

ginnings  of  the  stor}^  of  our  medical  profession 
as  it  has  been  revealed  to  us  in  recent  years. 

The  first  picture  that  we  have  of  a  physician 
in  history  is,  indeed,  one  to  make  us  proud  of 
our  profession.  The  first  physician  was  I-em- 
Hetep,  whose  name  means  "  the  bringer  of 
peace."  He  had  two  other  titles  according  to 
tradition,  one  of  which  was  "  the  master  of 
secrets,"  evidently  in  reference  to  the  fact  that 
more  or  less  necessarily  many  secrets  must  be 
entrusted  to  the  physician,  but  also,  doubtless,  in 
connection  with  the  knowledge  of  the  secrets  of 
therapeutics  which  he  was  supposed  to  possess. 
Another  of  his  titles  was  that  of  "  the  scribe  of 
numbers,"  by  which,  perhaps,  reference  is  made  to 
his  prescriptions,  which  may  have  been  lengthy, 
for  there  are  many  "  calendar  "  prescriptions  in 
the  early  daj^s,  but  may  only  refer  to  the  neces- 
sity of  his  knowing  weights  and  measures  and 
numbers  very  exactly  for  professional  purposes. 
I-em-Hetep  lived  in  the  reign  of  King  Tchser, 
a  monarch  of  the  third  dynasty  in  Egypt,  the 
date  of  which  is  somewhat  uncertain,  but  is  about 
4500  B.C.  How  distinguished  this  first  physician 
was  in  his  time  may  be  gathered  from  the  fact 
that  the  well-known  step  pyramid  at  Sakkara,  the 
old  cemetery  near  Memphis,  is  attributed  to  him. 
So  great  was  the  honor  paid  to  him  that,  after 
his  death  he  was  worshipped  as  a  god,  and  so 
we  have  statues  of  him  as  a  placid-looking  man 
with  a  certain  divine  expression,   seated  with   a 


358     MEDICINE  FOR  SIX  THOUSAND  YEARS 

scroll  on  his  knees  and  an  air  of  benignant  knowl- 
edge well  suited  to  his  profession. 

I  called  attention  in  1907  *  to  the  fact  that  the 
earliest  pictures  of  surgical  operations  extant  had 
recently  been  uncovered  in  the  cemetery  of  Sak- 
kara  near  Memphis  in  Egypt.  These  pictures 
show  that  surgery  was  probably  an  organized 
branch  of  medicine  thus  early,  and  the  fact  that 
they  are  found  in  a  very  important  tomb  shows 
how  prominent  a  place  in  the  community  the 
surgeon  held  at  that  time.  The  oldest  document 
after  that  which  we  have  with  regard  to  medicine 
is  the  "  Ebers  Papyrus,"  the  writing  of  which 
was  done  probably  about  1600  B.C.  This,  how- 
ever, is  only  a  copy  of  an  older  manuscript  or 
series  of  manuscripts,  and  there  seems  to  be  no 
doubt  that  the  text,  which  contains  idioms  of  a 
much  older  period,  or,  indeed,  several  periods, 
probably  represents  accumulations  of  information 
made  during  2,000  or  even  3,000  years  before  the 
date  of  our  manuscript.  Indeed,  it  is  not  improb- 
able that  the  oldest  portions  of  the  "  Ebers  Papy- 
rus "  owe  their  origin  to  men  of  the  first  Egyp- 
tian dynasties,  nearly  5,000  years  B.C.  To  be 
members  of  a  profession  that  can  thus  trace  its 
earliest  written  documents  to  a  time  nearly  some 
7,000  years  ago,  is  an  honor  that  may  be  readily 
appreciated  and  that  may  allow  of  some  com- 
placency. 

There  is  a  well-grounded  tradition  which  shows 

*  Journal  of  the  American  Medical  Association,  November  8,  1907. 


MEDICINE  FOR  SIX  THOUSAND  YEARS      359 

us  that  an  Egyptian  monarch  with  whose  name 
even  we  are  familiar,  though  we  may  not  be  able 
to  pronounce  it  very  well — he  was  Athothis,  the 
son  of  INIenes — wrote  a  work  on  anatomy.  The 
exact  date  of  this  monarch's  death  is  sometimes 
said  to  be  4157  B.C.  We  have  traces  of  hospitals 
in  existence  at  this  time  and  something  of  the 
nature  of  a  medical  school.  Indeed,  one  may 
fairly  infer  that  medical  education,  which  had  been 
developing  for  some  time,  probably  for  some 
centuries,  took  a  definite  form  at  this  time  in 
connection  with  the  temples  of  Saturn.  Priests 
and  physicians  were  the  same,'  or  at  least  physi- 
cians formed  one  of  the  orders  of  the  clergy  and 
the  teachers  of  medicine  particularly  were  clergy- 
men. This  tradition  of  closd'  affiliation  between 
religion  and  medicine  continued  down  to  the  fif- 
teenth century.  How  few  of  us  there  are  who 
realize  that  until  the  fourteenth  centurj^  the  pro- 
fessors of  medicine  at  the  great  universities  were 
not  married  men,  because  members  of  the  faculty, 
as  is  true  at  the  present  time  of  many  members 
of  the  faculty  in  the  English  universities,  were 
not  alloM^ed  to  marry.  The  old  clerical  tradition 
was  still  maintaining  itself  even  with  regard  to 
the  medical  teachers. 

Perhaps  the  most  interesting  thing  about  this 
early  history  of  medicine  in  Egypt  is  that,  with 
the  verj"  earliest  dawn  of  medical  history,  we  have 
traces  of  highly  developed  specialism  in  medicine. 
There  were  thirty-six  departments  of  medicine,  or 


360     MEDICINE  FOR  SIX  THOUSAND  YEARS 

at  least  there  were  thirty-six  medical  divinities 
who  presided  over  the  particular  parts  of  the 
human  body.  In  the  larger  temples,  at  least, 
there  was  a  special  corps  of  priest  physicians  for 
each  one  of  these  departments.  Herodotus,  the 
Father  of  History,  is  particularly  full  in  his  details 
of  Egyptian  history,  and  though  he  wrote  about 
400  B.C.,  nearly  2,300  years  ago,  his  attention  was 
attracted  by  this  highly  developed  specialism 
among  the  Egyptians.  He  tells  us  in  quaint 
fashion,  "  Physicke  is  so  studied  and  practised 
with  the  Egyptians  that  every  disease  hath  his 
several  physician,  who  striveth  to  excell  in  healing 
that  one  disease  and  not  to  be  expert  in  curing 
many.  Whereof  it.  cometh  that  every  corner  of 
that  country  is  full  of  physicians.  Some  for  the 
eyes,  others  for  the  head,  many  for  the  teeth, 
not  a  few  for  the  stomach  and  the  inwards." 

It  is  interesting  to  realize  that  the  same  state 
of  affairs  upon  which  you  young  graduates  will 
come  now  that  you  are  going  out  to  find  an  op- 
portunity to  practise  for  yourselves  at  the  end  of 
the  first  decade  of  the  twentieth  century,  is  not 
very  different  from  that  which  the  great  Father 
of  History  chronicles  as  the  state  of  affairs 
among  the  Egyptians  between  600  and  1,000 
before  Christ, — let  us  say  about  3,000  years  ago. 
You,  too,  will  find  that  every  corner  is  full  of 
physicians,  some  for  the  eyes,  others  for  the  head, 
many  for  the  teeth,  not  a  few  for  the  stomach 
and  everything  else  under  the  sun  quite  as  in  an- 


MEDICINE  FOR  SIX  THOUSAND  YEARS     361 

cient  Egypt.  After  a  time  you  will  probably  find 
that  some  little  corner  has  been  left  for  you,  and 
you  will  work  hard  enough  to  get  into  it  first, 
and  then  to  fill  it  afterward.  The  story  of  how 
young  physicians  have  got  on  in  their  first  few 
years  has  probably  been  interesting  at  all  times 
in  the  world's  history.  I  think  that  I  know  about 
it  at  five  different  periods,  and  in  every  one  of 
these  there  seemed  to  be  no  possible  room,  and 
yet  somehow  room  was  eventually  found,  though 
only  after  there  had  been  a  struggle,  in  the  midst 
of  which  a  certain  number  of  the  young  physi- 
cians found  another  sphere  of  activity  besides 
medicine. 

Of  course  it  is  easy  to  think  that  these  special- 
ties did  not  amount  to  much,  but  any  such  thought 
is  the  merest  assumption.  A  single  instance  will 
show  you  how  completely  at  fault  this  assump- 
tion is.  Dentistry  is  presumed  to  be  a  very  mod- 
ern profession.  As  a  matter  of  fact  mimimies 
were  found  in  the  cemetery  of  Thebes  whose 
bodies  probably  come  from  before  3000  B.C.,  who 
have  in  their  teeth  the  remains  of  gold  fillings 
that  were  well  put  in,  and  show  good  workman- 
ship, nearly  5,000  years  ago.*  After  dentistry, 
the  specialty  that  we  would  be  sure  could  not 
have  had  any  significant  existence  so  long  ago 
would  be  that  of  ophthalmology.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  it  is  with  regard  to  the  knowledge  of 
eye  diseases  displayed  by  these  early  teachers  of 

*Burdett:  "History  of  Hospitals." 


362     MEDICINE  FOR  SIX  THOUSAND  YEARS 

medicine  that  the  "  Ebers  Papyrus "  is  most 
startHng.  It  is  especially  full  in  diagnosis  and 
contained  many  valuable  hints  for  treatment.  As 
for  laryngology  and  rhinology,  one  of  the  earliest 
medical  records  that  we  have,  is  the  rewarding 
by  one  of  the  kings  of  Egypt  of  an  early  dynasty 
(nearly  4000  B.C.),  of  a  physician  who  had  cured 
him  of  a  trouble  of  the  nose  of  long  standing, 
that  seems  to  have  interfered  with  his  breathing. 
It  is  easy  to  think  in  spite  of  all  this,  that  the 
Egyptians  did  not  know  much  medicine;  but  only 
one  who  knows  nothing  about  it  thinks  so.  Ac- 
cording to  Dr.  Carl  von  Klein,  who  discussed  the 
"  Medical  Features  of  the  Ebers  Papyrus  "  in  the 
Journal  of  the  American  Medical  Association 
about  five  years  ago,  over  700  different  sub- 
stances are  mentioned  as  of  remedial  value  in  this 
old-time  medical  work.  There  is  scarcely  a  dis- 
ease of  any  important  organ  with  which  we  are 
familiar  in  the  modern  time  that  is  not  men- 
tioned here.  While  the  significance  of  diseases 
of  such  organs  as  the  spleen,  the  ductless  glands, 
and  the  appendix  was,  of  course,  missed,  nearly 
every  other  pathological  condition  was  either  ex- 
pressly named  or  at  least  hinted  at.  The  papy- 
rus insists  very  much  on  the  value  of  history- 
taking  in  medicine,  and  hints  that  the  reason 
why  physicians  fail  to  cure  is  often  because  they 
have  not  studied  their  cases  sufficiently.  While 
the  treatment  was  mainly  symptomatic,  it  was 
not  more  so  than  is  a  great  deal  of  therapeutics 


MEDICINE  FOR  SIX  THOUSAND  YEARS     363 

at  the  present  time,  even  in  the  regular  school  of 
medicine.  The  number  and  variety  of  their  rem- 
edies and  of  their  modes  of  administering  them  is 
so  marvellous,  that  I  prefer  to  quote  Dr.  von 
Klein's  enumeration  of  them   for  you: 

"  In  this  papyrus  are  mentioned  over  700  dif- 
ferent substances  from  the  animal,  vegetable  and 
mineral  kingdoms  which  act  as  stimulants,  seda- 
tives, motor  excitants,  motor  depressants,  nar- 
cotics, hypnotics,  analgesics,  anodynes,  antispas- 
modics, mydriatics,  myotics,  expectorants,  tonics, 
dentifrices,  sialogogues,  antisialics,  refrigerants, 
emetics,  antiemetics,  carminatives,  cathartics, 
purgatives,  astringents,  cholagogues,  anthelmin- 
tics, restoratives,  haematics,  alteratives,  antipy- 
retics, antiphlogistics,  antiperiodics,  diuretics,  dil- 
uents, diaphoretics,  sudorifics,  anhydrotics,  em- 
menagogues,  oxytocics,  caustics,  ecbolics,  gal- 
actagogues,  irritants,  escharotics,  caustics,  styp- 
tics, haemostatics,  emollients,  demulcents,  protec- 
tives,  antizymotics,  disinfectants,  deodorants, 
parasiticides,  antidotes  and  antagonists." 

Scarcely  less  interesting  than  the  variety  of 
remedies   were   their   methods    of    administration: 

*'  Medicines  are  directed  to  be  administered  in- 
ternally in  the  form  of  decoctions,  infusions,  in- 
jections, pills,  tablets,  troches,  capsules,  powders, 
potions  and  inhalations;  and  externally,  as  lotions, 
ointments,  plasters,  etc.  They  are  to  be  eaten, 
drunk,  masticated  or  swallowed,  to  be  taken  often 
once  only — often  for  many  days — and  the  time 


364.     MEDICINE  FOR  SIX  THOUSAND  YEARS 

is  occasionally  designated — to  be  taken  mornings, 
evenings  or  at  bedtime.  Formulas  to  disguise 
bad  tasting  medicaments  are  also  given."  We 
have  no  advantage  over  the  early  Egyptians  even 
in   elegant   prescribing. 

With  all  this  activity  in  Egypt,  it  is  easy  to 
understand  that  the  other  great  nations  of  an- 
tiquity also  have  important  chapters  in  the  his- 
tory of  medicine.  The  earliest  accounts  would 
seem  to  indicate  that  the  Chaldeans,  the  Assyr- 
ians and  the  Babylonians  all  made  significant 
advances  in  medicine.  It  seems  clear  that  a 
work  on  anatomy  was  written  in  China  about  the 
year  2000  B.C.  Some  of  the  other  Eastern  nations 
made  great  progress.  The  Hindoos  in  particu- 
lar have  in  recent  years  been  shown  to  have  ac- 
complished very  good  work  in  medicine  itself. 
Charaka,  a  Hindu  surgeon,  who  lived  not  later 
than  300  B.C.,  made  some  fine  contributions  to 
the  medical  literature  in  Hindostani.  There  were 
hospitals  in  all  these  countries,  and  these  provided 
opportunities  for  the  practice  of  surgery.  Lapa- 
rotomy was  very  commonly  done  by  Hindu  sur- 
geons, and  one  of  the  rules  enjoined  by  Hindu 
students  was  the  constant  habit  of  visiting  the 
sick  and  seeing  them  treated  by  experienced 
physicians.  Clinical  teaching  is  often  spoken  of 
as  a  modern  invention,  but  it  is  as  old  as  hos- 
pital systems,  and  they  go  back  to  the  dawn  of 
history. 

It  is  among  the  Greeks,  however,  that  the  most 


MEDICINE  FOR  SIX  THOUSAND  YEARS     365 

important  advances  in  medicine,  so  far  as  we  are 
concerned,  were  made.  This  is,  however,  not  so 
much  because  of  what  they  did  as  from  the  fact 
that  they  were  more  given  to  writing,  and  then 
their  writings  have  been  better  preserved  for  us 
than  those  of  other  nations.  The  first  great 
physician  among  the  Greeks  was  iEsculapius,  of 
whom,  however,  we  have  only  traditions.  He  is 
fabled  to  have  been  the  son  of  Apollo,  the  god 
of  music  and  the  arts,  and  therefore  to  have  been 
a  near  relative  of  the  Muses.  The  connection  is 
rather  interesting,  because  sometimes  people  try 
to  remove  medicine  from  among  the  arts  that 
minister  to  the  happiness  of  man,  and  place  it 
among  the  sciences  whose  application  is  for  his 
profit.  Medicine  still  remains  an  art,  however. 
The  temples  of  ^sculapius  were  the  first  hos- 
pitals, though  the  priests  were  not  the  only  ones 
who  practised  medicine,  for  there  were  laymen 
who,  after  having  served  for  some  time  in  the 
hospitals,  wandered  through  the  country  under 
the  name  of  Asclepiads,  treating  people  who  were 
not  able  to  go  to  the  hospitals  or  shrines.  These 
evidently,  then,  were  the  first  medical  schools  in 
Greece  as  well  as  the  first  hospitals. 

Six  hundred  years  after  iEsculapius  came  Hip- 
pocrates, of  Cos,  the  Father  of  Medicine.  He 
undoubtedly  had  the  advantage  of  many  Egyp- 
tian medical  traditions  and  other  Oriental  medi- 
cal sources,  as  well  as  the  observations  made  in 
the   hospitals   and   shrines   of   iEsculapius.      He 


366     MEDICINE  FOR  SIX  THOUSAND  YEARS 

wrote  some  great  works  in  medicine  that  have 
never  grown  old.  Young  men  do  not  read  them, 
old  men  who  are  over-persuaded  of  how  much 
progress  is  being  made  by  their  own  generation 
in  medicine  neglect  them.  The  busy  practitioner 
has  no  time  for  them.  The  great  teachers  of 
medicine  whom  all  the  professors  look  up  to  and 
who  think  for  us  in  each  generation  turn  fondly 
back  to  Hippocrates,  and  marvel  at  his  acumen 
of  observation  and  his  wonderful  knowledge  of 
men  and  disease.  Sydenham  thought  that  no  one 
had  ever  written  like  him,  and  in  our  turn  we 
honor  Sydenham  by  calling  him  the  English 
Hippocrates.  Boerhaave,  Van  Swieten,  Lancisi, 
the  great  fathers  of  modern  clinical  medicine, 
turned  with  as  much  reverence  to  Hippocrates 
as  does  Osier,  the  Regius  Professor  of  Medicine 
at  Oxford,  in  our  twentieth  century.  Hippoc- 
rates wrote  2,500  years  ago,  but  his  writing  is 
eternal  in  interest  and  value. 

The  famous  oath  of  Hippocrates,  which  used 
to  be  read  to  all  the  graduates  of  medicine,  well 
deserved  that  honor,  for  it  represents  the  highest 
expression  of  professional  dignity  and  obliga- 
tion. There  is  a  lofty  sense  of  professional  honor 
expressed  in  it  that  cannot  be  excelled  at  any 
period  in  the  world's  history.  Among  other 
things  that  Hippocrates  required  his  adepts  in 
medicine,  his  medical  students  when  they  gradu- 
ated into  physicians,  to  swear  to  was  the  follow- 
ing: "I  will  follow  the  system  of  regimen  which 


MEDICINE  FOR  SIX  THOUSAND  YEARS      367 

according  to  my  ability  and  judgment  I  consider 
for  the  benefit  of  my  patients,  and  abstain  from 
whatever  is  deleterious  and  mischievous.  I  will 
give  no  deadly  medicine  to  man,  woman,  or  child 
born  or  unborn.  With  purity  and  with  holiness 
I  will  pass  my  life  and  practise  my  art.  What- 
ever in  connection  with  my  professional  prac- 
tice, or  not  in  connection  with  it,  I  see  or  hear 
in  the  life  of  men  which  ought  not  to  be  spoken 
of  abroad,  I  shall  not  divulge,  as  reckoning  that 
all  such  should  be  kept  secret.  While  I  con- 
tinue to  keep  this  oath  in\^olate  may  it  be  granted 
to  me  to  enjoy  life  and  the  practice  of  my  art 
respected  by  all  men  in  all  times;  but  should  I 
trespass  and  violate  this  oath  may  the  reverse  be 
my  lot." 

It  is  sometimes  thought  that  after  the  Roman 
medicine,  which  was  an  imitation  of  the  Greek 
(though  Galen  well  deserves  a  place  by  him- 
self, and  Galen  is  usually  thought  of  as  a  Roman 
though  he  wrote  in  Greek  and  had  obtained  his 
education  at  Pergamos  in  Asia  Minor),  there 
was  an  interregnum  in  medicine  until  our  own 
time.  This  is,  however,  quite  as  much  of  an  as- 
sumption as  to  suppose  that  the  Egj^ptians  had 
no  medicine — as  we  used  to  until  we  knew  more 
about  them — or  that  old-time  medicine  is  quite 
negligible  because  we  were  ignorant  of  its  value. 
The  Middle  Ages  had  much  more  of  medicine 
than  we  are  likely  to  think,  and  just  as  soon 
as  the  great  universities  arose  at  the  end  of  the 


368     MEDICINE  FOR  SIX  THOUSAND  YEARS 

twelfth  and  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  cen- 
turies, medicine  gained  a  new  impetus  and  flour- 
ished marvellously.  These  university  medical 
schools  of  the  later  Middle  Ages  are  models  in 
their  way,  and  put  us  to  shame  in  many  things. 
According  to  a  law  of  the  Emperor  Frederick 
II  issued  for  the  Two  Sicilies  in  1241,*  three  years 
of  preliminary  study  were  required  at  the  uni- 
versity before  a  student  might  take  up  the  medi- 
cal course,  and  then  he  had  to  spend  four  years 
at  medicine,  and  practise  for  a  year  under  the 
supervision  of  a  physician  of  experience  before  he 
was  allowed  to  practise  for  himself.  The  story 
of  the  medicine  of  this  time  is  all  the  more  won- 
derful because  subsequent  generations  forgot 
about  it  until  recent  years,  and  supposed  that  all 
of  this  period  was  shrouded  in  darkness.  It  was 
probably  one  of  the  most  brilliant  periods  in 
medical  history.  Some  of  the  men  who  worked 
and  taught  in  medicine  at  this  time  will  never 
be  forgotten. 

Probably  the  greatest  of  them  was  Guy  de 
Chauliac,  a  Papal  chamberlain,  whom  succeed- 
ing generations  have  honored  with  the  title  of 
Father  of  Surgery.  His  great  text-book,  the 
"  Chirurgia  Magna,"  was  in  common  use  for  sev- 
eral centuries  after  his  death,  and  is  full  of  sur- 
gical teaching  that  we  are  prone  to  think  much 

•  For  the  complete  text  of  this  law,  the  first  regulating  the  practice 
of  medicine  in  modern  times,  also  the  first  pure  drug  law,  see  Walsh's 
The  Popes  and  Science.     New  York,  Fordham  University  Press,  1908. 


MEDICINE  FOR  SIX  THOUSAND  YEARS      369 

more  modern.  He  trephined  the  skull,  opened 
the  thorax,  operated  within  the  abdomen,  de- 
clared that  patients  suffering  from  wounds  of 
the  intestines  would  die  unless  these  were  sewed 
up,  operated  often  for  hernia  in  an  exaggerated 
Trendelenberg  position,  with  the  patient's  head 
down  on  a  board,  but  said  that  many  more  pa- 
tients were  operated  upon  for  hernia  "  for  the 
benefit  of  the  surgeon's  purse  than  for  the  good 
of  the  patient."  His  directions  for  the.  treat- 
ment of  fractures  and  for  taxis  in  hernia  were 
followed  for  full  four  centuries  after  his  time. 
No  wonder  that  Pagel,  the  great  German  his- 
torian, declared  that  "  Chauliac  laid  the  founda- 
tion of  that  primacy  in  surgery  which  the  French 
maintained  down  to  the  nineteenth  century." 
Portal,  in  his  "  History  of  Surgery,"  declares 
that  "  Guy  de  Chauliac  said  nearly  everything 
which  modern  surgeons  say,  and  his  work  is  of 
infinite  price,  but  unfortunately  too  little  read, 
too  little  pondered."  Malgaigne  declared  "  the 
'  Chirurgia  Magna '  a  masterpiece  of  learned  and 
luminous  writing." 

Chauliac's  *  personal  character,  however,  is  even 
more  admirable  than  his  surgical  knowledge.  He 
was  at  Avignon  when  the  black  death  occurred 
and  carried  away  one-half  the  population.  He 
was  one  of  the  few  physicians  who  had  the  cour- 

*  For  sketch  of  Chauliac  see  Johns  Hopkins  Hospital  Bulletin, 
1909,  or  Catholic  Churchmen  in  Science,  second  series.  Dolphin 
Press,  Philadelphia,  1909. 


370     MEDICINE  FOR  SIX  THOUSAND  YEARS 

age  to  stay.  He  tells  us  very  simply  that  he  did 
sta}^  not  because  he  had  no  fear,  for  he  was  dread- 
fully afraid,  but  he  thought  it  his  duty  to  stay. 
Toward  the  end  of  the  epidemic,  he  caught  the 
fever  but  survived  it  and  has  written  a  fine  de- 
scription of  it.  He  was  looked  upon  as  the  leader 
of  surgery  in  his  time,  and  this  is  his  advice  as  to 
what  the  surgeon  should  be  as  given  in  the  intro- 
ductory chapter  of  his  "  Chirurgia  Magna": 
"  The  surgeon  should  be  learned,  skilled,  ingeni- 
ous and  of  good  morals;  be  bold  in  things  that 
are  sure,  cautious  in  dangers;  avoid  evil  cures  and 
practices;  be  gracious  to  the  sick,  obliging  to  his 
colleagues,  wise  in  his  predictions;  be  chaste, 
sober,  pitiful  and  merciful;  not  covetous  nor  ex- 
tortionate of  money;  but  let  the  recompense  be 
moderate,  according  to  the  work,  the  means  of  the 
sick,  the  character  of  the  issue  or  event  and  its 
dignity."  No  wonder  that  Malgaigne  says  of 
him:  "  Never  since  Hippocrates  has  medicine 
heard  such  language  filled  with  so  much  nobility 
and  so  full  of  matter  in  so  few  words." 

The  old-time  medical  traditions  of  education 
which  in  the  mediseval  universities  produced  such 
men  as  William  of  Salicet  and  Lanfranc  and 
Mondeville  and  Guy  de  Chauliac,  persisted  dur- 
ing the  next  two  centuries  in  the  southern  coun- 
tries of  Europe,  and  then  were  transferred  to 
America  through  Spain.  The  first  American 
medical  school  was  not,  as  has  so  often  been  said, 
at    my    own    Alma    Mater,    the    University    of 


MEDICINE  FOR  SIX  THOUSAND  YEARS     371 

Pennsylvania,  which  had  its  first  lectures  in  1767, 
while  the  Physicians  and  Surgeons  of  New  York 
did  not  come  for  some  ten  years  later  and  Har- 
vard only  in  the  following  decade,  but  in  the 
medical  school  of  the  University  of  Mexico,  where 
the  first  lectures  were  held  in  1578,  and  where  a 
full  medical  school  was  organized  before  the  end 
of  the  sixteenth  century.  In  this  medical  school, 
which  during  the  seventeenth  century  came  to 
have  several  hundred  students,  the  university 
tradition  of  the  olden  time  was  well  preserved. 
Three  years  of  preliminary  study  at  the  univer- 
sity were  required  before  a  student  could  take 
up  the  course  in  medicine,  and  four  years  of 
medical  study  were  required  before  graduation. 
We  have  some  of  the  text-books,  and  know  much 
about  the  curriculum  of  this  old  medical  school, 
and  in  every  way  it  is  worthy  of  the  old  univer- 
sity traditions. 

Unfortunately  our  universities  in  what  is  now 
the  United  States  developed  very  slowly.  King's 
College  (Columbia)  did  not  become  a  university 
in  the  sense  of  having  law  and  medical  schools 
as  well  as  an  undergraduate  department  until 
the  nineteenth  century  had  almost  begun.  Har- 
vard did  not  have  a  law  school  affiliated  with  it 
until  the  first  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century 
had  almost  run  its  course.  The  affiliations  be- 
tween the  medical  schools  and  the  universities  in 
these  cases  was  only  very  slight,  and  the  medical 
schools  were  entirely  in  the  hands  of  the  medi- 


372     MEDICINE  FOR  SIX  THOUSAND  YEARS 

cal  faculty,  whose  main  purpose  during  a  great 
part  of  the  nineteenth  century  was  to  make  medi- 
cal studies  as  short  as  possible  and  as  inexpensive 
as  they  could  possibly  be  made  for  the  faculty, 
because  that  left  so  much  more  of  the  fees  to  be 
absorbed  by  the  historic  septennate  of  professors 
who  ruled  and  managed  the  university.  The  con- 
sequence was  that  during  most  of  the  nineteenth 
century  two  terms  of  four  months  each  were  all 
that  was  required  for  the  diploma  in  medicine  in 
most  American  medical  schools.  Three  schools 
maintained  a  very  high  standard  by  requiring 
twenty  weeks  in  each  of  two  calendar  years.  The 
medical  school  that  was  considered  one  of  the  best 
in  the  country,  and  whose  graduates  obtained  the 
highest  marks  in  the  army  and  navy  examina- 
tions, that  of  the  University  of  Virginia,  required 
but  two  terms  of  four  and  one-half  months  each 
which  might  be  taken  in  the  same  calendar  year, 
and  then  gave  the  doctor's  degree. 

It  may  be  as  well  to  say  that  the  doctor's  de- 
gree or  diploma  was  a  license  to  practise.  There 
were  no  State  regulations  for  the  practice  of  medi- 
cine, and  no  matter  how  obtained,  a  diploma  al- 
lowed practise.  As  some  one  has  well  said  the 
diploma,  then,  was  a  license  to  practise,  not  medi- 
cine, the  Lord  knows!  but  to  practise  on  one's 
patients  until  one  had  learned  some  medicine.  It 
is  out  of  this  slough  of  despond  in  medical  edu- 
cation that  we  have  climbed  in  the  last  thirty- 
five   years.     We   are   getting   back   to   the   old- 


MEDICINE  FOR  SIX  THOUSAND  YEARS     373 

time  university  traditions.  Let  us  hope  that  we 
shall  not  allow  ourselves  to  get  away  from  them 
again.  There  are  ups  and  downs  in  medical  prac- 
tice and  medical  fashions  and  medical  education, 
and  all  depends  on  the  men  who  compose  the 
profession  at  any  one  time  and  not  on  any 
mythical  progress  that  holds  them  up  and  compels 
them  to  do  better  than  those  who  went  before 
them.  The  highest  compliment  that  can  be  paid 
to  American  medicine  and  medical  men  is  that, 
in  spite  of  this  handicap  of  education  they  did 
not  utterly  degenerate,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
somehow  managed  to  maintain  the  dignity  of  the 
profession  and  do  much  good  work. 

It  is  to  you  to-day,  entering  on  this  profession, 
that  we  look  to  do  your  share  in  keeping  up  the 
dignity  of  the  medical  profession  and  in  maintain- 
ing standards  in  medical  education.  We  have  a 
glorious  tradition  of  6,000  years  behind  us  with 
the  great  men  of  the  profession  worshipped  as 
gods  at  the  beginning,  because  men  thought  so 
much  of  them,  and  remembered  fondly  as  great 
masters  when  they  came  in  the  after-time.  From 
I-em-Hetep  through  iEsculapius  and  Hippoc- 
rates and  Galen  and  Guy  de  Chauliac  and 
Sydenham  and  Boerhaave  down  to  our  own  time, 
the  men  whom  we  delight  to  honor  are  the  ones 
who  did  not  work  with  an  eye  single  to  their  own 
success,  but  who  tried,  above  all,  to  do  things  for 
humanity  and  for  the  profession  to  which  they 
belonged.    The  man  who  is  successful  as  a  money- 


374     MEDICINE  FOR  SIX  THOUSAND  YEARS 

maker  in  his  profession  is  only  doing  half  his  duty. 
He  must  make  medicine  as  well  as  money,  that 
is,  he  must  by  his  observations  help  others  to 
recognize  and  treat  disease  better  than  they  did 
before;  he  must  labor  for  the  benefit  of  humanity, 
and,  above  all,  he  must  see  that  there  are  no  de- 
cadence of  professional  spirit  and  no  deterioration 
of  medical  education  as  far  as  his  influence  can 
go.  It  is  men  of  this  kind  that  we  hope  to  send 
forth  from  Fordham,  and  you  stand  in  the  van 
of  them  all,  and  I  wish  you  God-speed. 


UNIVERSITY   MEDICAL    SCHOOLS 


"  Knowledge    comes    but    wisdom    lingers." — Tennyson, 
Locksley  Hall. 

"  The  foundation  stones  of  the  whole  modern  structure 
of  human  wisdom  have  all  been  laid  by  the  architects  of 
yesterday.  Thrice  wise  is  he  who  knows  the  quarries  and 
builders  of  by-gone  ages  and  is  able  to  differentiate  the 
stones  which  have  been  rejected  from  those  which  have 
been  utilized." — ^Anon. 

"  Ideo  Medico  id  in  primis  curandum,  ut  ab  aegro  cir- 
cumstantias  omnes  accurate  intelligat,  intellectas  con- 
sideret,  ut  inter  curandum  media  ilia  adhibeat,  quae 
tollendo  morbo  apta  sunt,  ne  ex  medicina  nocumentum 
proveniat." — Basil  Valentine,  Triumphal  Chariot  of 
Antimony. 

[The  physician  must  therefore  especially  take  care  that 
he  understand  all  the  circumstances  of  his  patient  very 
clearly,  and  after  understanding  them  weigh  them  well, 
so  that  during  his  treatment  he  may  use  those  means  which 
are  especially  suited  to  control  the  disease,  lest  any  harm 
should  come  from  his  medicine.] 


UNIVERSITY  MEDICAL  SCHOOLS* 

It  aflPords  me  great  pleasure  to  accept  the  in- 
vitation of  your  Faculty  to  address  the  graduates 
of  a  university  medical  school  here  in  the  Mid- 
dle West.  I  wondered,  of  course,  what  I  should 
talk  to  you  about,  and  have  come  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  as  an  historian  of  medicine  any  mes- 
sage I  may  have  for  you  is  likely  to  come  from 
my  own  subject.  It  so  happens  that  we  are  just 
beginning  to  realize  that  the  history  of  medicine 
may  have  much  greater  significance  for  us  than 
we  have  usually  been  accustomed  to  think,  and, 
above  all,  that  it  may  mean  much  in  furnishing 
incentive  for  the  maintaining  and  raising  of  stand- 
ards in  medical  education.  In  recent  years  there 
has  come  a  very  decided  improvement  in  medi- 
cal education  in  the  United  States.  It  is  not  hard 
to  understand  that  the  foreigner  lifts  his  eye- 
brows in  surprise  when  he  is  told  that  most  of 
our  medical  schools  a  generation  ago  required 
but  two  terms  of  four  months  each,  and  that  there 
was  then  just  beginning  to  be  a  demand  for  a 
little  more  complete  course  and  better  facilities. 
There  was  a  large  number  of  medical  schools, 
turning  out  graduates  every  year  with  the  degree 

*  Address  to  the  graduates  of  St.  Louis  University  Medical  and 
Dental  Schools,  May  31,  1910,  at  the  Odeon,  St.  Louis. 

377 


378         UNIVERSITY  MEDICAL  SCHOOLS 

of  doctor  of  medicine,  which  was  a  license  to 
practise  in  every  state  in  the  Union,  for  there 
were  no  state  or  federal  laws  regulating  the  prac- 
tice of  medicine.  As  for  preliminary  require- 
ments the  less  said  the  better.  If  a  man  could 
write  his  name  and,  indeed,  he  did  not  have  to 
write  it  very  plainly,  he  found  it  easy  to  matricu- 
late in  a  medical  school  and  to  be  graduated  at 
the  end  of  two  scant  terms  of  four  months  each. 
He  might  come  from  the  mines,  or  from  the 
farm,  or  'from  before  the  mast,  or  from  the 
smithy,  or  the  carpenter  shop ;  he  need  know  noth- 
ing of  chemistry,  nor  physics,  nor  of  botany,  nor 
of  English  and,  above  all,  of  English  grammar, 
and  he  was  at  once  admitted  to  what  was  called 
a  professional  school  and  graduated  when  he 
had  served  his  time.  Practically  no  one  was 
plucked.  The  desire  of  the  faculty  for  num- 
bers of  students  forbade  that  in  most  cases.  The 
two  terms  in  medicine  were  not  even  successive 
courses.  The  second-year  student  listened,  as  a 
rule,  to  the  same  lectures  that  he  might  have 
heard  the  preceding  year. 

We  all  know  the  reason  now  for  this  ex- 
tremely low  standard  of  medical  education.  Pro- 
prietary medical  schools  made  it  their  one  busi- 
ness in  life  to  make  just  as  much  out  of  medical 
education  as  possible  and  the  historic  septennate 
of  professors,  or  sometimes  the  Dean,  pocketed 
the  fees  (I  came  near  saying  spoils)  every  year, 
and  robbed  medical  American  education  of  what- 


UNIVERSITY  MEDICAL  SCHOOLS         379 

ever  possibilities  it  might  have  for  the  real  train- 
ing of  young  men  in  the  science  and  art  and 
practice  of  medicine.  Perhaps  the  most  interest- 
ing feature  of  this  maintenance  of  extremely  low 
standards  in  medical  education,  however,  is  the 
fact  that  in  spite  of  it,  men,  or  at  least  some  of 
them,  succeeded  in  obtaining  a  good  foundation  in 
medicine  and  then  by  personal  work  afterwards 
came  to  be  excellent  practitioners  of  medicine. 
Professor  Welch  said  not  long  since:  "  One  can 
decry  the  system  of  those  days,  the  inadequate 
preliminary  requirements,  the  short  courses,  the 
dominance  of  the  didactic  lecture,  the  meagre  ap- 
pliances for  demonstrative  and  practical  instruc- 
tion, but  the  results  were  better  than  the  system. 
Our  teachers  were  men  of  fine  character  devoted 
to  their  duties;  they  inspired  us  with  enthusiasm, 
interest  in  our  studies  and  hard  work,  and  they 
imparted  to  us  sound  traditions  of  our  pro- 
fession." 

Nothing  that  I  know  is  a  better  compliment  to 
American  enterprise  and  power  of  overcoming 
the  difficulties  of  the  situation  than  the  life 
stories  of  some  of  the  men  who  came  from  these 
completely  inadequate  schools.  If  with  the 
maimed  training  and  incomplete  education  given 
a  generation  ago  American  medicine  not  only  suc- 
ceeded in  maintaining  the  dignity  of  the  profes- 
sion to  a  noteworthy  degree,  but  also  developed 
many  men  who  made  distinct  contributions  to 
world  medicine,  what  will  we  not  do  now  that 


380         UNIVERSITY  MEDICAL  SCHOOLS 

our  medical  education  is  gradually  being  lifted  up 
out  of  the  slough  of  despond  in  which  it  was  and 
the  preliminary  education  for  medical  studies 
set  at  a  standard  where  real  work  of  thoroughly 
scientific  character  can  be  looked  for,  from  the 
very  beginning  of  the  medical  course? 

Is  it  any  wonder,  then,  that  those  of  us  who 
have  the  best  interests  of  American  medicine  at 
heart  are  watching  with  careful  solicitude  the 
movement  that  is  now  reforming  medical  edu- 
cation in  this  country?  The  one  hope  of  medical 
education  is,  and  always  has  been,  organic  con- 
nection with  a  university.  Real  LTniversity  Medi- 
cal Schools,  that  is  medical  schools  as  the  genuine 
Post-Graduate  Departments  of  Universities  with 
the  fine  training  that  they  give,  have  opened  our 
eyes  to  what  is  needed  in  medical  education  in 
this  country.  Some  of  the  old-time  medical 
schools  here  in  the  United  States  had  been  con- 
nected by  name  with  universities  but  this  was 
more  apparent  than  real,  and  the  medical  faculty 
ruled  absolutely  in  its  own  department  and  throt- 
tled medical  education  and  divided  the  income 
of  the  college  among  themselves,  devoting  as  little 
as  possible  to  equipment,  to  laboratories,  to  all 
that   was   needed   for  medical   education. 

Now  has  come  the  epoch  of  university  medical 
schools  in  this  country.  I  came  near  saying 
America,  but  we  must  not  forget  that  the  Span- 
ish-American countries,  having  adopted  their  edu- 
cational systems  from  the  mother  Latin  country, 


UNIVERSITY  MEDICAL  SCHOOLS         381 

have  always  maintained  the  organic  connection  of 
the  medical  school  with  their  universities,  and  as 
a  consequence  a  good  preliminary  education,  the 
equivalent  of  three  years  of  college  work  with  us, 
is  required  and  has  always  been,  and  then  some 
four  years  in  the  medical  school  and,  indeed,  in 
most  of  the  countries  five  or  six  years  and  in  one 
at  least  seven  years  of  medical  study  required. 
I  have  thought,  however,  that  this  story  of  medi- 
cal education  in  connection  with  universities  and 
real  university  work  will  be  especially  interest- 
ing to  the  graduates  of  this  thorough  Western 
university,  whose  work  in  medicine  is  acknowl- 
edged as  up  to  some  of  the  best  standards  of 
professional  attainment  and  whose  organic  con- 
nection with  a  great  university  assures  not  only 
the  continuance,  but  the  future  development  of 
medical  education  here  along  lines  that  shall  place 
this  among  the  serious  progressive  medical  schools 
of  the  world. 

The  first  university  medical  school  that  well 
deserves  that  name  is  the  one  that  came  into  ex- 
istence in  connection  with  the  University  of  Alex- 
andria. I  have  been  at  some  pains,  because  it  is 
so  delightfully  amusing,  to  point  out  how  closely 
the  University  of  Alexandria  resembles  our  mod- 
ern universities  in  most  particulars.  It  was 
founded  by  a  great  conqueror,  who  had  gone  forth 
to  conquer  the  world,  and  having  attained  almost 
universal  dominion  sighed  for  more  worlds  to 
conquer.     Then  he  set  about  the  foundation  of 


382  UNIVERSITY  MEDICAL  SCHOOLS 

a  great  city  that  was  to  be  the  capital  of  his 
empire,  and  endowed  a  great  institution  of  learn- 
ing in  that  capital  that  was  to  attract  students 
from  all  over  the  world.  When  he  died  pre- 
maturely the  Ptolemys,  who  inherited  the  African 
portion  of  his  vast  dominions,  carried  out  his 
wishes.  Money  was  no  object  at  Alexandria:  they 
put  up  magnificent  buildings,  founded  a  great  li- 
brary, bought  a  lot  of  first  editions  of  books  in  the 
shape  of  author's  original  manuscripts,  stole  the 
archives  at  Athens,  used  Alexander's  collection 
(made  for  Aristotle)  as  the  foundation  of  what 
we  would  call  a  museum,  paid  professors  better 
salaries  than  they  received  at  that  time  anywhere 
else  and  housed  them  in  palaces.  What  a 
strangely  familiar  sound  all  this  has!  Then 
Alexandria  proceeded  to  do  scientific  work. 

Euclid  wrote  his  geometry,  and,  unchanged,  it 
has  come  down  to  us  and  we  still  use  it  as  a 
text-book  in  our  colleges.  Archimedes,  following 
up  Euclid's  work,  laid  the  foundation,  of  me- 
chanics in  his  study  of  the  lever  and  the  screw, 
and  of  hydrostatics  and  of  optics  in  his  studies  of 
specific  gravity  and  burning  mirrors  and  lenses. 
He  made  a  series  of  marvellous  inventions  show- 
ing that  he  was  a  practical  as  well  as  a  theoretic 
genius,  who  would  be  gladly  welcomed,  nay, 
eagerly  sought  for,  as  a  member  of  the  faculty 
even  of  a  university  of  the  highest  rank  or  largest 
income  in  our  modern  times.  Ptolemy  elaborated 
the  system  of  astronomy  that  had  been  so  ably 


UNIVERSITY  MEDICAL  SCHOOLS  383 

developed  by  teachers  at  Alexandria  before  his 
time,  and  Heron  invented  his  engines,  which  we 
have  had  as  toys  in  our  laboratories  for  cen- 
turies. We  realized  the  true  significance  of  one 
of  them  only  when  the  turbine  engine  was  in- 
vented and  we  found  that  the  principle  of  it  was 
in  the  toy  engine  of  this  old  natural  philosopher 
of  Alexandria.  They  even  did  their  literature 
scientifically  at  the  University  of  Alexandria. 
We  have  no  great  original  works  from  them  in 
literature,  but  they  invented  comparative  litera- 
ture; for  this  making  the  Septuagint  translation 
of  the  Holy  Scriptures  and  doing  the  same  for 
many  other  religious  documents  of  the  surround- 
ing nations  for  comparative  study. 

It  is  rather  easy  to  understand,  then,  that  a 
medical  school  arose  in  connection  with  this  scien- 
tific university,  and  that  it  did  excellent  work. 
The  collections  of  Aristotle  contained  many  illus- 
trations which  served  as  the  basis  for  zoology, 
botany,  comparative  anatomy  and  probably  even 
comparative  physiology.  The  Ptolemys  were 
very  liberal  and  allowed  dissection  of  the  human 
body,  so  that  human  anatomy  developed  from  a 
definite  scientific  standpoint  better  then  ever  be- 
fore. The  number  of  strangers  in  the  town  and 
the  rather  unhealthy  climate  of  Egypt  left  many 
unclaimed  bodies.  It  has  always  been  the  diffi- 
culty of  obtaining  bodies  much  more  than  preju- 
dice against  the  violation  of  the  human  body  on 
any  general  principle,  that  has  been  the  reason 


384.         UNIVERSITY  MEDICAL  SCHOOLS 

for  the  absence  of  human  dissection  in  many 
periods  of  the  world's  history.  We  object  to 
having  the  bodies  of  friends  cut  up,  but  we  do 
not  mind  much  if  the  bodies  of  those  who  are 
unknown  to  us  are  treated  in  that  way.  So 
long  as  men  did  not  travel  much  there  were  few 
unclaimed  bodies.  With  the  advent  of  travel 
came  abundant  material  for  dissection  and  the 
Ptolemys  allowed  the  medical  school  to  use  it. 

Two  great  anatomists  built  up  the  structure 
of  scientific  human  anatomy  on  the  rather  good 
foundation  that  had  been  laid  on  animal  anatomy 
in  the  foretime.  After  all,  the  anatomy  of  the 
animal  resembles  that  of  man  so  much  that  very 
precious  knowledge  had  been  gained  from  zo- 
otomies in  the  previous  ages.  These  two  anat- 
omists were  Erasistratos  and  Herophilos.  Both 
of  them  studied  the  brain  especially,  as  might 
have  been  expected.  For  just  as  soon  as  the 
opportunity  for  dissecting  man  was  provided,  this, 
his  most  complex  structure,  attracted  instant  at- 
tention. Herophilos  has  named  after  him  the 
torcular  herophili,  and  the  name  he  gave  the  curi- 
ous appearance  in  the  floor  of  the  fourth  ven- 
tricle— the  calamus  scriptorius — is  still  retained. 
He  described  the  membranes  of  the  brain,  the 
various  sinuses,  the  choroid  plexuses,  the  cere- 
bral ventricles  and  traced  the  origin  of  the  nerves 
from  the  brain  and  the  spinal  cord,  recognizing, 
according  to  well-grounded  tradition,  the  distinc- 
tion  between   nerves    of    sensation    and   motion. 


UNIVERSITY  MEDICAL  SCHOOLS  385 

He  described  the  eye  and  especially  the  vitreous 
body,  the  choroid  and  the  retina.  He  did  not 
neglect  other  portions  of  anatomy,  however,  and 
his  power  of  exact  observation,  as  well  as  his 
detailed  study,  may  be  judged  from  his  remark 
that  the  left  spermatic  vein  in  certain  cases  joins 
the  renal. 

Erasistratos,  his  colleague,  was  perhaps  even 
a  more  successful  investigator  than  Herophilos. 
He  represented  the  best  tradition  of  Greek  medi- 
cine of  the  time.  He  had  two  distinguished 
teachers,  one  of  them  Metrodoros,  the  son-in- 
law  of  Aristotle.  It  was  probably  through  this 
influence  that  Erasistratos  received  his  invitation 
from  the  first  Ptolemy  to  come  to  Alexandria. 
The  scientific  work  of  Alexandria  was  founded 
on  Aristotle's  collections,  on  his  books,  for  his 
library  was  brought  to  Alexandria  as  the  founda- 
tion of  the  great  University  Library,  and  then 
best  of  all  on  the  direct  tradition  of  his  scientific 
teaching  through  this  pupil  of  his  son-in-law. 
Erasistratos'  other  great  teacher  was  the  well- 
known  Chrysippos  of  Cnidos.  Cnidos  was  the 
great  rival  medical  school  to  that  of  Cos.  Owing 
to  the  reputation  of  Hippocrates  we  know  of  Cos, 
but  we  must  not  ignore  Cnidos. 

Erasistratos'  discoveries  were  more  in  con- 
nection with  the  heart  than  anything  else.  He 
came  verj'^  near  discovering  the  circulation.  His 
description  of  the  valves  and  of  their  function 
is  verj'-  clear.     He  looked   for  large-sized   anas- 


386         UNIVERSITY  MEDICAL  SCHOOLS 

tomoses  between  veins  and  arteries  and,  of  course, 
did  not  discover  the  minute  capillaries  which 
required  Malpighi's  microscope  to  reveal  them 
nearly  2,000  years  after.  Like  Herophilos,  Era- 
sistratos  also  studied  the  brain  very  faithfully. 

One  story  that  we  have  of  Erasistratos  deserves 
to  be  in  the  minds  of  young  graduates  in  medi- 
cine, because  it  illustrates  the  practical  char- 
acter of  the  man  and  also  how  much  more  im- 
portant at  times  it  may  be  in  the  practice  of 
medicine  to  know  men  well  rather  than  to  know 
medical  science  alone.  Erasistratos  was  sum- 
moned on  a  consultation  to  Antioch  to  see  the 
son  of  King  Seleucus.  Seleucus  was  one  of  the 
four  of  Alexander's  generals  who,  like  Ptolemy, 
had  divided  the  world  among  them  after  the 
yoi^ng  conqueror's  death.  His  portion  of  the 
Eastern  world,  with  its  capital  at  Antioch,  was 
probably  the  richest  region  of  that  time.  There 
had  been  no  happiness,  however,  in  the  royal 
household  for  months  because  the  scion  of  the 
Seleucidae,  the  heir  to  the  throne,  was  ill  and  no 
physician  had  been  able  to  tell  what  was  the  mat- 
ter with  him,  and,  above  all,  no  one  had  been 
able  to  do  anything  to  awaken  him  from  a  leth- 
argy that  was  stealing  over  him,  making  him 
quite  incapable  of  the  ordinary  occupations  of 
men,  or  to  dispel  an  apathy  which  was  causing 
him  to  lose  all  interest  in  affairs  around  him. 
He  was  losing  in  weight,  he  looked  miserable,  he 
seemed   really   to   have   been   stricken  by   one   of 


UNIVERSITY  MEDICAL  SCHOOLS         387 

the  serious  diseases  as  yet  undifferentiated  at  that 
time  which  were  expressed  by  the  word  phthisis, 
which  referred  to  any  wasting  disease. 

As  a  last  hope  then  almost,  Erasistratos  was 
summoned  from  distant  Alexandria  as  a  con- 
sultant in  the  case  of  young  Seleucus.  The  pro- 
ceeding, after  all,  is  very  similar  to  what  hap- 
pens in  our  own  time.  The  head  of  an  important 
department  in  medicine  at  a  university  is  asked 
to  go  a  long  distance  to  see  the  son  of  a  reign- 
ing monarch,  or  of  a  millionaire  prince  in  in- 
dustry, or  perhaps  a  coal  baron,  or  a  railroad 
king,  and  a  special  train  is  supplied  for  him  and 
every  convenience  consulted.  A  caravan  was  sent 
to  bring  Erasistratos  over  the  desert  to  Antioch. 
It  is  such  consultations  that  count  in  a  physician's 
life.  I  hope  sincerely  that  you  shall  have  many 
of  them  and  that  you  shall  conduct  them  as  suc- 
cessfully   as    Erasistratos    this    one. 

The  young  prince's  case  proved  as  puzzling 
to  Erasistratos  for  a  time  as  it  had  to  so  many 
other  physicians  before  him.  Like  the  experienced 
practitioner  he  was,  he  did  not  make  his  diagnosis 
at  once,  however.  Will  you  remember  that  when 
you,  too,  have  a  puzzling  case?  It  is  when  we 
do  not  take  time  to  make  our  diagnosis  that  it 
often  proves  erroneous.  Not  ignorance,  but 
failure  to  investigate  properly,  is  responsible  for 
most  of  our  errors.  He  asked  to  see  the  patient 
a  number  of  times,  and  saw  him  under  varying 
conditions.     Finally,  one  day,  while  he  was  ex- 


388  UNIVERSITY  MEDICAL  SCHOOLS 

amining  the  young  man's  pulse — and  I  may 
tell  you  that  Efrasistratos  made  a  special  study 
of  the  pulse  and  knew  many  things  about  it  that 
it  is  unfortunate  that  the  moderns  neglect — his 
patient's  pulse  garve  a  sudden  leap  and  then  con- 
tinued to  go  much  faster  than  it  had  gone  be- 
fore. At  the  same  time  there  came  a  rising 
color  to  the  young  man's  cheek.  Erasistratos 
looked  up  to  see  what  was  the  cause  of  this  strik- 
ing change,  and  found  that  the  young  wife  of 
the  King  Seleucus,  the  prince's  stepmother,  had 
just  come  into  the  room.  Seleucus,  as  an  old 
man,  had  married  a  very  handsome  young  woman, 
and  it  was  evident  that  the  young  man's  heart  was 
touched  in  her  regard,  and  that  here  was  the 
cause  of  the  trouble.  Erasistratos  did  not  pro- 
claim his  discovery  at  once.  He  did  announce 
that  now  he  knew  the  cause  of  the  trouble,  that 
it  was  an  affection  of  the  heart  that  would  be 
cured  by  travel,  and  he  proposed  to  take  young 
Seleucus  back  with  him  to  Alexandria.  In  pri- 
vate, very  probably,  he  told  his  young  patient 
that  he  had  discovered  his  secret,  and  then  per- 
suaded him  that  absence  would  be  the  thing  for 
him.  Very  probably  the  young  man  considered 
that  cure  was  impossible,  and  with  many  mis- 
givings he  consented  to  go  to  Alexandria,  and 
as  has  happened  many  times  before  and  since, 
in  spite  of  the  patient's  assurance  to  the  con- 
trary, the  travel  cure  proved  effective  even  for 
the  heart  affection. 


UNIVERSITY  ^lEDICAL  SCHOOLS         389 

I  hope  sincerely  that  you  shall  have  as  much 
tact,  as  much  knowledge  of  men  and  women 
and  as  much  success  as  this  great  teacher  at  the 
first  of  our  modern  university  medical  schools, 
when  the  great  consultations  do  come  your  way, 
for  it  is  easy  to  understand  that  when  the  young 
man  recovered  under  the  kindly  ministrations  of 
Erasistratos  and  the  good  effect  of  absence  from 
the  disturbing  heart  factor,  Erasistratos  was 
loaded  ^^ith  the  wealth  of  the  East  and  acquired 
a  reputation  that  made  him  known  throughout 
all  the  world  of  that  time.  There  is  a  curious 
commentarj^  on  this  story  that  I  think  you  should 
also  know.  It  is  Galen  who  has  preserved  the 
incident  for  us.  He  does  so  in  the  book  on  the 
pulse,  mainly  in  order  to  show,  as  he  thinks, 
the  fatuity  of  such  observations.  After  giving  the 
details  he  says,  "  Of  course,  there  is  no  special 
pulse  of  love."  Poor  Galen,  how  his  wits  must 
have  been  wool-gathering,  or  how  forgetful  he 
must  have  been  of  his  own  youth  writing  in  the 
serenity  of  age,  or  how  lacking  in  ordinary 
human  experience  if  that  is  his  serious  meaning. 
The  older  man  was  by  far  the  better  observer, 
and  I  hope  that  you  shall  not  forget  in  the  time 
to  come  that  there  are  many  things  that  affect 
men  and  women  besides  bacteria  and  auto-intoxi- 
cations of  various  kinds  and  metabolic  disturbances 
and  nutritional  changes.  Erasistratos  seems  to 
have  known  very  well  how  much  the  mind,  or  as 
they  called  it  in  the  older  terminology,  and  we 


390         UNIVERSITY  MEDICAL  SCHOOLS 

still  cling  to  the  phrase,  the  heart,  meant  for 
many  a  phenomenon  of  existence  supposed  to  be 
physically  pathologic  and  yet  really  only  repre- 
senting psychologic  influences  apart  from  the 
physical  side  of  .the  being.  I  may  say  to  you  that 
the  more  you  know  about  these  old  teachers  of 
medicine  the  more  you  will  appreciate  and 
value  their  largeness  of  view,  their  breadth 
of  knowledge  of  humanity  and  their  practical 
ways. 

It  is  no  wonder  that  students  from  all  over 
the  world  were  attracted  to  Alexandria  for  the 
next  three  centuries  because  of  the  opportunities 
for  the  study  of  medicine  afforded  them  there. 
After  the  first  century  of  its  existence  not  as 
much  was  accomplished  as  at  the  beginning, 
because  what  always  happens  in  the  history  of 
medicine  after  a  period  of  successful  investiga- 
tion, happened  also  there.  Men  concluded  that 
nearly  everything  that  could  be,  had  been  discov- 
ered and  began  to  theorize.  They  were  sure 
that  their  theories  explained  things.  Men  have 
persisted  in  spinning  theories  in  medicine. 
Theories  have  almost  never  helped  us  and  they 
always  have  wasted  our  time.  Observation! 
Observation  is  the  one  thing  that  counts.  Alex- 
andria continued  to  have  her  reputation,  how- 
ever, and  in  the  first  century  of  the  Christian  era 
was  the  centre  of  medical  interest.  It  was  prob- 
ably here  that  St.  Luke  was  educated,  and  as  we 
know  now  from  the  careful  examination  of  the 


UNIVERSITY  MEDICAL  SCHOOLS         391 

Third  Gospel  and  of  the  Acts,  he  knew  his  Greek 
medical  terms  very  well.  Harnack  has  shown  us 
recently  once  more  how  thoroughly  Luke  con- 
verted the  ordinary  popular  terms  of  the  other 
Evangelists  into  the  Greek  medical  terms  of  his 
time.  Luke  must  have  known  medicine  very 
well.  His  testimony  to  the  miracles  of  Christ 
is  therefore  all  the  more  valuable,  and  so  the 
Alexandrian  medical  school  has  its  special  place 
in  the  order  of  Providence. 

We  are  prone  to  think  because  of  the  curious 
way  in  which  not  only  the  histories  of  medical 
education,  but  of  all  education,  have  been  written, 
that  while  there  were  some  medical  schools  in  the 
interval  from  the  days  of  Alexandria  and  Rome 
down  to  the  modern  time,  these  were  so  hampered 
by  unfortunate  conditions  that  men  practically 
did  nothing  in  education  and,  above  all,  scientific 
and  medical  education  until  comparatively  recent 
times.  Nothing  could  well  be  more  absurd  than 
such  an  opinion.  The  great  universities  founded 
during  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries 
attracted  more  students  to  the  population  of  the 
countries  of  the  time  than  go  to  our  universities 
to  the  number  of  our  population  in  the  present 
time.  These  universities  are  the  model  of  our 
universities  of  the  present  time  and,  indeed,  the 
histor\^  of  many  of  the  old  European  universities 
is  continuous  for  seven  centuries.  They  had  an 
undergraduate  department  in  which  students 
were  trained  in  grammar,   rhetoric,   logic,   arith- 


392         UNIVERSITY  MEDICAL  SCHOOLS 

metic,  astronomy,  music  and  gymnastics,  and 
graduate  departments  of  law,  theology  and  medi- 
cine. Professor  Huxley,  reviewing  mediaeval  edu- 
cation, once  said  that  the  undergraduate  educa- 
tion of  the  mediaeval  universities  was  better  than 
our  own.  He  doubted  "  that  the  curriculum  of 
any  modern  university  shows  so  clear  and 
generous  a  comprehension  of  what  is  meant 
by  culture  as  this  old  trivium  and  quadrivium 
did." 

Their  post-graduate  work  was  just  as  fine  as 
their  undergraduate  work.  They  made  the  law 
of  the  world  in  the  thirteenth  century,  and  laid 
the  foundations  on  which  the  philosophy  and  theol- 
ogy of  the  after-time  have  been  built  up.  Strange 
as  it  may  seem  to  many  accustomed  to  give  cre- 
dence to  far  different  traditions,  they  did  the  same 
thing  in  medicine.  Take  as  a  single  example 
what  they  did  for  the  regulation  of  medical  edu- 
cation and  practice.  A  law  of  the  Emperor 
Frederick  II,  issued  in  1241  for  the  Two  Sicilies 
(Southern  Italy  and  Sicily  proper),  required 
three  years  of  preliminary  training  in  the  ordinary 
undergraduate  course  at  the  university  before  a 
man  was  allowed  to  take  up  medicine,  and  four 
years  at  medicine  before  he  got  his  degree.  But 
even  this  was  not  all;  after  graduation,  a  year  of 
practice  with  a  physician  was  required  before 
he  was  allowed  to  practise  for  himself.  If  he 
were  going  to  practise  surgery  an  extra  year  of 
the  study  of  anatomy  was  required.     But  it  may 


UNIVERSITY  MEDICAL  SCHOOLS         393 

be  said  by  those  who  cannot  persuade  themselves 
that  the  Middle  Ages  so  far  anticipated  us:  since 
they  knew  almost  nothing  of  medicine  and  sur- 
gery, what  did  they  spend  their  time  at  during 
these  four  years?  The  more  we  know  about  the 
details  of  that  early  teaching,  the  more  we  respect 
them  and  the  more  we  admire  the  magnificent 
work  of  the  old-time  professors  and  their 
schools. 

Probably  the  most  surprising  feature  of  their 
teaching  was  surgery.  We  are  rather  likely  to 
think  that  the  development  of  surgery  was  re- 
served for  our  day.  Nothing  could  be  more 
untrue.  The  greatest  period  in  the  history  of 
surgery,  with  the  possible  exception  of  our  own 
time,  is  the  century  and  a  half  from  1250  to 
1400.  What  they  taught  in  surgery  we  know 
not  from  tradition,  but  from  the  text-books  of 
the  great  teachers  which  have  been  preserved  for 
us,  and  which  have  been  recently  republished. 
Three  men  stand  out  pre-eminent:  William  of 
Salicet;  Lanfranc,  who  taught  at  Paris,  having 
been  invited  there  from  Italy,  where  he  had 
been  a  pupil  of  William  of  Salicet,  and  Guy  de 
Chauliac,  to  whom  has  been  given  by  uni- 
versal accord  the  title  of  Father  of  Modern 
Surgery. 

There  is  practically  nothing  in  modern  sur- 
gery that  these  men  did  not  touch  in  their  text- 
books. Perhaps  the  most  surprising  thing  is  to 
find   that    William   of    Salicet,    in   discussing   his 


394         UNIVERSITY  MEDICAL  SCHOOLS 

cases,  suggested  that  sometimes  he  succeeded  in 
obtaining  union  by  first  intention  by  keeping 
his  wounds  clean.  Alas  for  the  surgery  of  suc- 
ceeding centuries,  Guy  de  Chauliac,  a  greater 
mechanical  genius  than  William,  insisted  that 
union  by  first  intention  was  an  illusion  and  that 
it  could  only  come  through  pus  formation. 
Laudable  pus  became  the  shibboleth  of  surgery 
for  centuries,  imposed  upon  it  by  the  genius  of 
a  great  man.  Most  men  think  that  they  think, 
they  really  follow  leaders,  and  so  we  followed 
blindly  after  Guy  until  Lister  came  and  showed 
us  our  mistake. 

Guy  was  the  professor  of  surgery  down  at 
Montpellier,  and  also  the  physician  to  the  Popes, 
who  for  the  time  were  at  Avignon.  His  text-book 
of  surgery  is  full  of  expressions  that  reveal  the 
man  and  the  teacher.  He  said  the  surgeon  who 
cuts  the  human  body  without  a  knowledge  of 
anatomy  is  like  a  blind  carpenter  carving  wood. 
He  insisted  that  men  should  make  observations  for 
themselves  and  not  blindly  follow  others.  He  dis- 
cussed operations  on  the  head,  the  thorax  and  the 
abdomen.  He  said  that  wounds  of  the  intestines 
would  surely  be  fatal  unless  sewed  up,  and  he 
described  the  technique  of  suture  for  them.  His 
specialty  was  operation  for  hernia.  There  are 
pictures  still  extant  of  operations  for  hernia  done 
about  this  time  in  an  exaggerated  Trendelenberg 
position.  The  patient  is  fastened  to  a  board  by 
the  legs,   head  down,   the  board  at   an   angle  of 


UNIVERSITY  MEDICAL  SCHOOLS         395 

forty-five  degrees  against  the  wall.  The  intes- 
tines dropped  back  from  the  site  of  operation 
and  allowed  the  surgeon  to  proceed  without  dan- 
ger. Guy  said  that  more  patients  were  operated 
on  for  the  sake  of  the  doctor's  pocket  in  hernia 
cases  than  for  their  own  benefit.  His  instruc- 
tions to  his  students,  his  high  standard  of  pro- 
fessional advice,  all  show  us  one  of  the  great 
physicians  of  all  time  and  historians  of  medicine 
are  unanimous  in  their   praise   of  him. 

The  next  great  development  in  medicine  came 
at  the  time  of  the  Renaissance  with  the  reorgan- 
ization of  the  universities.  In  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury Italy  particularly  did  magnificent  work  in 
the  universities,  stimulated  by  close  touch  with 
old  Greek  medicine.  At  Padua,  at  Bologna,  above 
all,  at  Rome,  the  great  foundations  of  the  modern 
medical  sciences  were  laid.  I  need  only  mention 
the  names  of  Vesalius,  Varolius,  Eustachius,  Fal- 
lopius,  Columbus  (who  discovered  the  circulation 
of  the  blood  in  the  lungs),  Cassalpinus,  to  whom 
and  rightly  the  Italians  attribute  the  discovery  of 
the  systemic  circulation  nearly  half  a  century  be- 
fore Harvey.  These  men  all  of  them  did  fine 
work,  everywhere  in  Italy.  They  were  doing 
original  investigation  of  the  greatest  value. 
Whenever  anybody  anywhere  in  Europe  at  this 
time  wanted  to  do  good  work  in  science  of  any 
kind, — astronomy,  mathematics,  physics  and,  above 
all,  in  any  of  the  medical  sciences, — he  went  down 
to  Italy;  Italy  was  and  continued  for  five  cen- 


a96         UNIVERSITY  MEDICAL  SCHOOLS 

turies  after  the  thirteenth  to  be  what  France  was 
for  a  scant  half  a  century  in  the  nineteenth,  and 
Germany  for  a  corresponding  period  just  before 
our  own  time.  How  curiously  the  history  of 
science  and  of  medicine  was  written  when  it  seems 
to  contradict  this. 

Above  all,  what  ridiculous  nonsense  has  been 
talked  about  Papal  opposition  to  science.  The 
great  universities  of  Italy  in  the  thirteenth  and 
fourteenth  centuries  had  charters  from  the  Popes. 
They  were  immediately  under  ecclesiastical  in- 
fluence, yet  they  did  fine  work  in  anatomy  and 
surgery.  The  Father  of  Modern  Surgery  was  a 
Papal  physician.  The  Papal  physicians  for  seven 
centuries  have  been  the  greatest  contributors  to 
medicine.  The  Popes  deliberately  selected  as 
their  physicians  the  greatest  investigators  of  the 
time.  Besides  Guy  de  Chauliac  such  men  as 
Eustachius,  Varolius,  Columbus,  Csesalpinus,  Lan- 
cisi,  Malpighi  were  Papal  physicians.  We  have 
even  a  more  striking  testimony  to  the  Papal 
patronage  and  encouragement  of  medicine  and 
to  the  Church's  fostering  care  of  medical  educa- 
tion, here  in  America.  The  first  university  medi- 
cal school  in  America  was  not,  as  has  so  often 
been  said,  the  medical  school  of  the  University 
of  Pennsylvania  founded  in  1767,  but  the  medical 
school  of  the  University  of  Mexico,  where  medi- 
cal lectures  were  first  delivered  in  1578.  Our 
medical  schools  in  this  country  have  only  become 
genuine   university   medical   schools   in   the   sense 


UNIVERSITY  MEDICAL  SCHOOLS         397 

of  being  organic  portions  of  the  university  in 
the  last  twenty-five  years.  Before  that  their 
courses  were  brief  and  unworthy  and  no  pre- 
liminary education  was  required. 

The  universities  of  Spanish  America  from  the 
very  beginning  required  three  years  of  prelimi- 
nary training  in  the  university  before  medicine 
could  be  taken  up,  and  then  four  j^ears  of  medi- 
cal studies.  These  four  years  became  five  and 
six  years  in  certain  countries,  and  at  no  time 
during  the  nineteenth  century  did  the  medical 
education  of  Spanish  America  sink  to  the  low 
level  unfortunately  reached  in  the  United  States. 
The  lesson  of  it  is  clear.  When  medical  educa- 
tion is  seriously  undertaken  as  a  university  de- 
partment, all  is  well.  When  it  is  not,  the  results 
are  disastrous. 

In  our  day  and  country  another  great  awaken- 
ing of  university  life  has  come  and  with  it  a 
drawing  together  in  intimate  union  of  universities 
and  their  graduate  departments.  Above  all,  the 
medical  schools  have  profited  by  this  closer  con- 
nection with  university  work,  and  the  prospects 
for  medical  education  in  the  United  States  and 
a  new  period  of  wonderful  progress  in  it  are 
very  bright.  You  have  my  hearty  congratula- 
tions, then,  on  your  graduation  from  a  great 
university  medical  school  here  in  the  West,  and 
I  hope  sincerely  that  j^ou  shall  prove  worthy  of 
Alma  ]VIater.  You  have  had  the  privileges  of 
university    education    and    these    involve    duties. 


398         UNIVERSITY  MEDICAL  SCHOOLS 

This  is  ever  true,  though  unfortunately  it  is  some- 
what seldom  realized.  Noblesse  oblige.  We  hear 
much  in  these  days  of  the  stewardship  of  wealth, 
and  do  not  let  us  forget  that  there  is  a  steward- 
ship of  talent  and  education.  JNIuch  more  will 
be  demanded  of  you  because  of  your  opportunities, 
and  we  look  for  an  accomplishment  on  your  part 
far  above  the  ordinary  in  medical  work  and  main- 
tenance and  uplift  of  professional  dignity,  that 
shall  mean  much  for  your  fellows. 

Remember  that  you  are  doing  only  half  your 
duty  if  you  but  make  your  living  or  even  make 
money.  You  are  bound  besides  to  make  medi- 
cine. For  all  that  the  forefathers  have  done  for 
us  we  in  this  generation  must  make  return  by  a 
broadening  of  their  medical  views  for  the  benefit 
of  posterity.  If  you  were  graduates  of  some 
fourth-rate  proprietary  medical  school,  perhaps  it 
would  be  sufficient  if  you  succeeded  in  making 
your  living  out  of  your  profession.  Perhaps 
even  your  teachers  would  then  be  quite  satisfied 
with  you.  No  such  meagre  accomplishment  can 
possibly  satisfy  those  who  are  sending  you  out 
to-daj*.  Above  all,  you  must  remember  that  your 
education  is  not  for  yourself,  but  for  the  benefit 
of  others  as  well.  If,  somehow,  its  influence 
becomes  narrowed  so  as  only  to  affect  yourself 
and  your  intimate  friends  then  it  is  essentially  a 
failure.  You  must  not  only  live  your  lives  for 
yourselves,  but  so  that  at  the  end  of  them  the 
community  shall  have  been  benefited  and  medicine 


UNIVERSITY  MEDICAL  SCHOOLS         399 

and  its  beneficent  mission  to  mankind  shall  be 
broader  and  more  significant  because  you  have 
lived.  With  this  message,  then,  I  welcome  you  as 
brother  physicians  and  bid  you  God-speed  in  your 
professional  work. 


THE   COLLEGE   MAN   IN   LIFE 


"  Non  scholae  sed  vitae  discimus." — Seneca,  Epist.,  106. 
[We  learn  for  life  not  for  school.] 

"  Nee  si   non   obstatur,   propterea   ctiam  permittitur." — 

Cicero,  Philip.,  xiii,  6. 

[And  because  a  thing  is  not  forbidden  that  does  not  make 

it  permissible.] 

"  Ubicunque  Jiomo  est  ibi  beneficio  locus  est." — Seneca, 

De  Vita  Beata,  24. 

[Wherever  man  is  there  is  room  to  do  good.] 

"  Then  let  us  not  leave  the  meaning  of  education  am- 
biguous or  ill-defined.  At  present,  when  we  speak  in  terms 
of  praise  or  blame  about  the  bringing  up  of  each  person, 
we  call  one  man  educated  and  another  uneducated,  al- 
though the  uneducated  man  may  sometimes  be  very  well 
educated  for  the  calling  of  a  retail  trader,  or  of  a  captain 
of  a  ship,  and  the  like.  For  we  are  not  speaking  of  edu- 
cation in  this  sense  of  the  word,  but  of  that  other  educa- 
tion in  virtue  from  youth  upwards,  which  makes  a  man 
eagerly  pursue  the  ideal  perfection  of  citizenship  and 
teaches  him  how  rightly  to  rule  and  how  to  obey.  This 
is  the  only  training,  which  upon  our  view  would  be  char- 
acterized as  education ;  that  other  sort  of  training,  which 
aims  at  the  acquisition  of  wealth  or  bodily  strength,  or 
mere  cleverness  apart  from  intelligence  and  justice,  is 
mean  and  illiberal,  and  is  not  worthy  to  be  called  educa- 
tion at  all.  But  let  as  not  quarrel  with  one  another  about 
the  name,  provided  that  the  proposition  which  has  just 
been  granted  hold  good :  to  wit,  that  those  who  are  rightly 
educated  generally  become  good  men.  Neither  must  we 
cast  a  slight  upon  education,  which  is  the  first  and  fairest 
thing  that  the  best  of  men  can  ever  have,  and  which, 
though  liable  to  take  a  wrong  direction,  is  capable  of 
reformation.  And  this  work  of  reformation  is  the  great 
business  of  every  man  while  he  lives." — Plato,  Laws 
(Jowett),  Vol.  IV,  p.  174.     Scribner,  1902. 


THE  COLLEGE  MAN  IN  LIFE  * 

Gentlemen  of  the  Graduating  Class:  The 
custom  is,  I  fear,  for  the  orator  who  addresses  the 
graduating  class  to  talk  over  the  heads  of  those 
who  have  received  their  degree  to  the  larger  audi- 
ence who  are  assembled  for  the  academic  function. 
Now,  that  I  do  not  propose  to  do.  What  I  have 
to  say  is  to  you.  My  message  is  meant  entirely 
for  you.  Since  your  friends  are  present  I  have 
to  raise  my  voice  so  that  they  shall  hear  what 
I  have  to  say,  but  I  consider  that  they  are  here 
only  on  sufferance  and  that  I  am  here  to  say 
whatever  I  can  that  may  mean  something  for  you 
in  the  careers  that  are  opening  up  to  you.  Now, 
I  am  not  of  those  who  think  that  the  main  pur- 
pose of  the  eld  is  to  give  advice  to  the  young. 
Man  is  so  fashioned  that  he  wants  to  get  his  own 
experience  for  himself.  It  is  true  that  "  only 
fools  learn  by  their  own  experience,"  wise  men 
learn  by  that  of  others.  But  then  we  have  divine 
warrant  for  saying  that  there  used  to  be  a  goodly 
proportion  of  fools  in  the  world  and  human  ex- 
perience agrees  in  our  own  time  that  not  all  the 
fools  are  dead  yet.  Our  advice  may  not  be  taken 
in  all  its  literalness;  that  would  be  too  much  to 

*  This  was  the  address  to  the  graduates  at  Boston  College,  June  22, 
1910. 

403 


404.  THE  COLLEGE  MAN  IN  LIFE 

expect,  but  it  has  become  an  academic  custom  to 
give  it,  in  the  hope  that  it  will  be  a  landmark, 
perhaps  an  incentive,  it  may  be  a  warning,  surely 
some  time  a  precious  memory  in  the  time  to  come. 
Few  men  who  ever  lived  were  less  likely  to 
think  that  their  advice  might  mean  very  much 
than  dear  old  Bobbie  Burns,  to  whom  one  of  your 
number  referred,  and  yet  some  time  I  hope  that 
in  some  serious  mood  you'll  read  and  think  well 
on  the  poetic  epistle  of  advice  to  his  youthful 
friend.  There  are  some  lines  at  the  beginning  of 
it  that  have  haunted  me  at  times  these  many  years 
when  I  have  been  asked  to  address  studious  j'^outh 
at  the  commencement,  as  our  term  for  the  occa- 
sion so  well  declares,  of  their  real  education  in 
the  post-graduate  courses  of  that  University  of 
Hard  Knocks  which  valedictorians  at  this  season 
of  the  year  are  so  prone  to  call  the  cold,'  cold 
world.  The  Scottish  ploughman  bard  said  in 
the  choice  English  he  could  so  well  assume  on 
occasion : 

"  I  long  hae  tho't,  my  youthful  friend, 

A  something  to  hae  sent  you. 
Though  it  may  serve  no  ither  end 

Than  as  a  kind  memento ; 
But  how  the  subject  theme  may  gang, 

Let  time  and  chance  determine; 
Perhaps  it  may  turn  out  a  sang 

Perhaps  turn  out  a  sermon." 

One   thing   is   sure,   whatever    I    shall    say   to 
you  shall  not  be  a  song,  though,  alas!  addresses 


THE  COLLEGE  MAN  IN  LIFE  405 

of  advice  are  prone  to  sound  like  sermons.  Yet 
the  sermon,  after  all,  in  the  old  Latin  word 
sermo,  is  onh^  a  discourse,  and  I  am  going  to 
make  mine  as  brief  as  possible.  It  shall,  I  hope, 
serve  to  round  out  some  of  the  things  that  you 
yourselves  have  been  saying  with  regard  to  Catho- 
lics and  social  works  and,  above  all.  Catholic  col- 
lege men  in  social  works. 

We  are  rightly  getting  to  estimate  the  value  of 
a  man  in  our  time  in  terms  of  what  he  accom- 
plishes for  others  much  more  than  for  himself. 
Almost  any  one  who  devotes  himself  with  suffi- 
cient exclusiveness  to  the  business  of  helping 
himself  will  make  a  success  of  it,  though  some 
maj^  doubt  of  the  value  of  that  success.  What 
is  difficult  above  all  in  our  time,  when  the  spirit 
of  individualism  is  so  rampant,  is  to  make  a  suc- 
cess of  helpfulness  for  others  while  making  life 
flow  on  with  reasonable  smoothness  for  one's 
self.  I  do  not  hope  to  be  able  to  impart  to  you 
the  precious  secret  of  how  surely  to  do  this,  but 
something  that  I  may  saj^  nia\^  be  helpful  to  you 
in  leading  a  larger  than  a  mere  selfish  life,  so 
that  when  the  end  shall  come,  as  come  it  must, 
though  one  would  never  suspect  it  from  the  ways 
of  men,  the  world  will  be  a  little  better  at  least 
because  you  have  lived. 

Education  has  become  the  fetish  of  the  day 
and  the  shibboleth  by  which  the  Philistine  is  recog- 
nized from  the  chosen  people  of  culture  and  re- 
finement.     Popular    education    has    become    the 


406  THE  COLLEGE  MAN  IN  LIFE 

watchword  of  the  time,  and  all  things  are  fondly 
hoped  for  and  confidently  promised  in  its  name. 
We  are  somewhat  in  doubt  as  to  the  mode  of 
education  that  will  be  surely  effective  for  all 
good  and  we  are  not  quite  certain  as  to  how  the 
results  are  exactly  to  be  obtained,  but  education 
is  to  make  the  world  better;  to  get  rid  gradu- 
ally, yet  inevitably,  of  the  evil  that  is  in  it;  to  lift 
men  up  to  the  higher  plane  of  knowledge  where 
selfishness  is  at  least  not  supposed  to  exist,  or 
surely  to  be  greatly  minimized,  where  crime,  of 
course,  shall  disappear,  and  where  even  the  minor 
evils  so  hide  their  diminished  beads  that  the  mil- 
lennium can  not  be  far  distant.  It  is  true  that 
some  of  these  glorious  promises  seem  long  in  ful- 
filment to  those  who  are  a  little  sceptical  of  the 
influence  of  particular  forms  of  education  that 
are  now  popular,  but,  of  course,  the  response 
to  that  is,  that  so  far  we  have  not  had  the 
time  to  have  the  full  benefit  of  education  exert 
itself. 

At  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  En- 
cyclopedists in  France,  in  their  great  campaign 
for  the  diffusion  of  information  among  the  people 
and  the  spread  of  what  they  were  pleased  to  call 
education,  though  some  of  us  are  prone  to  think 
that  they  hopelessly  confused  the  distinction  be- 
tween education  for  power  and  education  for  in- 
formation, confidently  promised  that  when  men 
knew  enough,  poverty,  of  course,  would  disappear 
and  in  its  train  would  go  all  the  attendant  evils, 


THE  COLLEGE  MAN  IN  LIFE  407 

vice  and  crime  and  immorality,  and  with  them,  . 
of  course,  unhappiness  would  disappear  from  the 
world.  That  is  considerably  over  a  century  now, 
but  we  have  not  found  it  advisable  as  yet  to  do 
away  with  courts  of  law,  nor  jails,  nor  policemen, 
nor  any  of  the  mechanism  of  the  law  for  the 
suppression  of  crime  and  immorality.  Indeed, 
there  are  those  who  are  unkind  enough  to  say, 
that  we  now  have  to  make  use  of  more  means  than 
ever  in  proportion  to  the  population  for  the  sup- 
pression of  vice  and  crime,  and  that  they  are 
more  emphatically  demanded  even  than  at  the 
time  of  the  Encyclopedists.  As  for  unhappiness 
and  poverty,  recent  investigations  in  our  large 
cities  show  so  large  a  proportion  of  people  willing 
yet  unable  to  obtain  a  decent  living  wage,  that  it  is 
quite  startling.  Our  insane  asylums  are  growing 
much  more  rapidly  than  the  population,  and  not 
a  few  of  the  inmates  are  there  because  of  im- 
morality. Suicide  is  on  the  increase  faster  than 
the  population  and  unfortunately  the  greatest  in- 
crease is  noted  in  the  younger  years.  It  is  be- 
tween fifteen  and  twenty-five  that  suicides  are 
multiplying. 

Of  course  the  answer  to  this  is,  that  education 
is  not  as  yet  carried  to  that  extent  among  the 
great  mass  of  people  which  would  enable  it  to 
have  its  full  beneficial  effects.  Our  common 
school  education  is  not  enough  to  bring  people 
under  the  beneficent  influence  of  this  great  civiliz- 
ing   factor    for    the    development    of    mankind. 


408  THE  COLLEGE  MAN  IN  LIFE 

Educators  would  urge  that  it  is  the  higher  edu- 
cation which  serves  to  obliterate  the  ills  that 
human  flesh  is  heir  to,  moral  as  well  as  physical, 
as  far,  of  course,  as  that  is  possible  in  so  imper- 
fect a  world  as  this.  If  we  could  but  extend  the 
advantages  of  the  higher  education,  of  college 
and  university  training  to  the  majority  of  the 
people,  then  say  the  advocates  of  education  as 
a  panacea  for  human  ills,  we  would  surely  have 
that  approach  to  the  millennium  which  intellectual 
development  by  the  diffusion  of  information  can 
and  must  give. 

It  is  worth  while  analyzing  that  proposition  a 
little  and  applying  it  to  present-day  conditions  as 
we  know  them.  After  all  we  have  been  turning 
out  a  large  number  of  those  who  have  had  the 
benefit  of  the  higher  education  from  our  colleges 
and  universities  during  the  last  generation  or  so. 
They  have  gone  out  by  the  thousand  to  influence 
their  fellows  and  presumably  to  be  shining  lights 
for  profound  improvement  of  life,  striking  ex- 
amples that  surely  will  prove  an  incentive  and  a 
source  of  emulation  to  others  to  do  the  right, 
avoid  the  wrong,  be  helpful  instead  of  selfish  and, 
in  general,  show  the  world  how  much  education 
means  for  the  happiness  of  all.  There  is  a  slang 
expression  familiar  in  New  York  just  now  that 
you  in  New  England  may  not  know,  for  I  under- 
stand that  even  the  owls  near  Boston  do  not  say 
"  to-whit-to-whoo  "  but  "  to-whit-to-whoom,"  that 
may  be  quoted  here:  "  Some  men  are  born  good, 


THE  COLLEGE  MAN  IN  LIFE  409 

some  make  good .  and  some  are  caught  with  the 
goods  on  them."  Not  all  of  the  graduates  of 
colleges  and  universities  were  born  good,  of 
course.  I  wonder  what  we  shall  find  with  regard 
to  the  other  two  phases  of  existence.  There  are 
not  a  few  who  are  critically  perverse  enough  to 
say  that,  while  many  have  made  good,  too  many 
have  been  caught  with  the  goods  on  them. 

Let  us  take  the  subject  that  is  so  strikingly 
brought  before  us  in  our  everyday  life  in  recent 
years,  the  question  of  political  corruption.  Of 
course  it  is  to  be  presumed  that  it  is  the  non- 
college  men  who  are  both  corruptors  and  cor- 
rupted. It  is,  of  course,  just  as  confidently  to 
be  presumed,  on  the  other  hand,  that  it  is  the 
college  men  who  are  the  forerunners  in  all  the 
exposures  of  recent  years.  Alas!  for  human  na- 
ture, it  is  just  the  contrary.  The  leaders  in  big 
corruption,  the  mainstays  of  what  has  come  to 
be  called  "  big  political  business,"  have  nearly 
all  been  college  men.  This  has  been  true  in  Cali- 
fornia, in  Missouri,  in  Pennsylvania,  in  New 
York,  in  Illinois.  It  would  be  easy  to  add  other 
states,  but  I  am  only  mentioning  those  where 
investigations  are  not  yet  forgotten,  though  we 
American  people  have  cultivated  a  really  mar- 
vellous power  of  forgetting.  The  states  are 
sufficiently  far  apart  from  one  another  to  make 
it  very  clear  that  the  condition  is  not  limited  to 
a  particular  locality  but  is  practically  universal. 
In  recent  years  we  have  been  getting  closer  to  the 


410  THE  COLLEGE  MAN  IN  LIFE 

man  higher  up.  In  a  great  many  of  the  cases,  I 
should  say  in  a  majority  of  them,  he  has  proved 
to  be  a  university  man,  and  if  not,  then  university 
men  have  been  his  right  hands  in  the  accompHsh- 
ment  of  evil.  The  boards  of  directors  of  corpo- 
rations, life  insurance,  fire  insurance,  railroads, 
great  industries  and  manufactures,  even  banks, 
who  have  known  that  laws  were  being  violated 
and  who  have  not  cared  because  it  was  money  in 
their  pockets,  have  in  many  cases,  perhaps  even  in 
the  majority  of  cases,  been  college  men.  Cer- 
tainly college  graduates  have  not  proved  to  be 
the  little  leaven  that  would  leaven  the  whole  mass 
for  righteousness. 

In  the  even  more  dangerous  evils  of  our  time 
that  have  risked  the  very  existence  of  demo- 
cratic government,  in  the  imposition  on  the  peo- 
ple by  the  privileged  classes  of  indirect  taxes 
and  tariffs  that  make  life  hard  for  the  poor,  but 
add  largely  to  the  wealth  of  the  rich,  college 
men  have  only  too  often  been  the  active  agents. 
Without  their  active  co-operation  certainly  these 
crying  injustices  to  the  poor  would  never  have 
been  accomplished.  They  have  often  been  add- 
ing useless  millions  to  useless  millions  simply 
for  the  game,  not  caring  how  much  the  poor  had 
to  suffer.  They  have  been  accumulating  at  the 
expense  of  the  working  classes  what  Governor 
Hughes  of  New  York  so  well  called,  not  long 
since,  a  corruption  fund  for  their  children.  They 
have   been   the   prime   factors   in   many   agencies 


THE  COLLEGE  MAN  IN  LIFE  411 

for  evil  and  they  have  not  been  the  guardians  of 
the  rights  of  others,  the  weaker  ones,  that  we 
have  a  right  to  expect  of  them.  In  the  awful 
e^als  that  have  been  exposed  as  a  consequence  of 
the  fellow-servant  doctrine  and  the  contributory 
negligence  principle  at  law,  which  have  been  the 
root  of  so  much  suffering  in  the  world,  college 
men  have  not  helped  to  point  out  evils  and  or- 
ganized for  the  solution  of  them,  though  they 
have  been  closely  in  contact  with  all  the  prob- 
lems of  them  as  judges,  lawyers,  directors  of  rail- 
road companies,  and  industrial  concerns.  In  gen- 
eral, while  they  have  been  in  a  position  to  know 
and  alleviate  some  of  the  worst  ills  of  our  social 
system,  the}"  have  done  very  little.  They  helped 
to  bind  fetters.  It  is  men  of  much  lower  social 
station  and  education  who  have  awakened  us. 

The  investigations  of  recent  years  as  to  the 
condition  of  wage-earners  have  shown  us  many  un- 
fortunate evils.  It  was  known  that  one  in  four 
of  the  population  in  London  was  living  in  dire 
poverty  and  this  was  thought  to  be  due  to  the 
special  circumstances  in  London.  An  investiga- 
tion of  York  in  England  showed,  however,  that 
smaller  towns,  even  cathedral  towns,  that  were 
supposed  to  be  almost  without  poverty,  were 
hot-beds  of  it  and  were  nearly  as  bad  as  London. 
Then,  we  took  the  flattering  unction  to  our  souls 
that  these  were  altogether  foreign  conditions. 
Such  investigations  as  we  could  make  in  New 
York,  however,  showed  that  we  were  little  if  any 


412  THE  COLLEGE  MAN  IN  LIFE 

better  than  the  reports  from  England  and  Ger- 
many revealed  abroad.  Then  it  was  said  that  the 
large  city,  that  brood-oven  of  vice  and  misery, 
was  responsible.  Pittsburg,  for  instance,  set  up 
the  claim  that  while  great  fortunes  were  made 
there  the  workmen  were  paid  better  wages  than 
any  place  else  in  the  world.  Alas  for  the  falli- 
bility of  human  judgment  in  social  affairs!  The 
Pittsburg  Survey  was  made  and  it  was  found 
that  while  a  few  of  the  better-class  workmen  were 
paid  very  well,  the  great  mass  of  the  workmen 
were  awfully  underpaid,  and  it  was  impossible 
for  the  majority  of  them  to  live  decently  on 
what  they  received.  Further  investigations  into 
industrial  conditions  have  only  emphasized  the 
conclusions  obtained  from  the  Survey. 

Human  life  has  become  very  cheap  in  this 
countrj^  A  prominent  clergyman  said  not  very 
long  ago  that  it  was  safer  to  be  a  murderer  in 
the  United  States  than  a  brakeman.  The  ex- 
pression is  true  if  the  proportion  of  brakemen 
who  lose  their  lives  to  murderers  who  lose  theirs 
in  this  country  is  taken.  We  are  careless  of  the 
lives  of  the  honest  workman,  and  sentimentally 
over-careful  of  the  lives  and  comfort  of  the 
criminal.  Every  now  and  then  there  are  in- 
evitable reactions  against  this  laxity  of  the  law, 
and  as  a  consequence,  while  Canada  has  no  lynch- 
ings  and  there  are  none  in  England,  while  peo- 
ples of  our  stock  have  no  need  to  appeal  to  force, 
we   lynch   many   more   than   we   execute   in   this 


THE  COLLEGE  MAN  IN  LIFE  413 

country.  The  leaders  of  many  of  the  mobs,  as  the 
directors  of  the  industrial  companies  who  know- 
ingly allow  the  waste  of  life  to  go  on,  have  had 
the  benefit  of  our  American  education,  such  as  it 
is.  Educated  people  are  responsible  for  things 
that  are  and  unless  they  meet  their  responsibilities 
there  will  be  no  improvement. 

Some  of  these  abuses  have  risen  to  a  climax. 
Not  long  ago  a  story  was  told  that  illustrates, 
as  it  seems  to  me,  some  present-day  feelings  very 
well.  A  great  steel  company  having  a  contract 
for  a  bridge  in  the  Far  East,  was  rushing  the 
last  steel  beams  for  the  completion  of  the  con- 
tract. America  is  noted  for  its  marvellous  power 
to  do  work  rapidly  that  other  countries  take  time 
for.  There  was  a  heavy  penalty  attached  if  they 
did  not  complete  the  contract  on  time.  A  fast 
steamer  was  waiting  in  New  York  harbor  all 
ready  to  take  this  last  consignment  out  with  it. 
A  special  train  was  standing  in  the  yards  of  the 
steel  plant,  to  be  rushed  to  New  York  just  as 
soon  as  the  beams  were  completed.  In  the  midst 
of  all  the  hurry  and  bustle  a  workman  got  his 
foot  caught  in  the  huge  crane  which  trans- 
ports the  immense  beams  from  one  portion  of  the 
plant  to  the  other.  An  examination  of  the  man- 
ner in  which  he  was  caught  showed  clearly  that 
he  could  not  be  released  without  taking  the  crane 
apart.  That  would  mean  that  thirty-six  hours 
would  have  to  be  spent  in  the  mechanical  handling 
of  that  crane.     If  that  were  done  it  would  be 


414  THE  COLLEGE  MAN  IN  LIFE 

quite  impossible  to  make  the  shipment  on  time, 
so  closely  was  the  period  of  completion  cal- 
culated. Not  only  was  there  a  heavy  money 
penalty,  but  there  would  be  a  decided  loss  of 
American  prestige. 

The  workman  who  was  caught  was  only  a  for- 
eigner. He  was  only  getting  $1.25  a  day.  Just 
one  thing  was  to  be  done  evidently,  because  that 
steamer  had  to  sail  on  time  and  that  freight  train 
had  to  get  out  the  next  morning.  The  other 
foreign  workmen  were  put  out  of  the  shops,  onlj'^ 
the  confidential  men  were  left,  an  ambulance  was 
summoned;  as  it  appeared  in  sight  the  crane  was 
run  over  the  portion  of  the  foot  that  was  caught, 
the  man  was  removed  to  the  care  of  the  surgeon, 
his  wound  was  dressed  at  the  hospital,  the  con- 
tract was  completed  on  time  and  American  enter- 
prise and  power  to  do  things  faster  than  all  the 
world  was  vindicated. 

We  are  making  money.  In  the  meantime  the 
directors  of  companies  under  whom  such  things 
are  done  are  mainly  college  men.  Whether  they 
feel  it  or  not  they  are  personally  responsible  for 
everything  that  happens  in  their  business,  for 
it  is  their  business  by  which  human  life  is  sacri- 
ficed or  human  suffering  increased,  or  human 
morality  deteriorated.  Probably  the  majority 
of  the  stockholders  in  the  companies  are  college 
men.  Some  of  them  are  college  women.  They 
are  de^i\^ng  incomes  from  forms  of  injustice, 
from  conditions  that  cause  human  suffering  that 


THE  COLLEGE  MAN  IN  LIFE  415 

might  be  avoided.  They  are,  whether  they  know 
it  or  not,  committing  one  of  the  crimes  that  calls 
to  heaven  for  vengeance — defrauding  laborers  of 
their  wages;  because  to  pay  a  man  less  than  a 
decent  living  wage  is  to  defraud  that  laborer  of 
his  wages.  No  man  has  a  right  to  go  into  the 
labor  market  and  buy  labor  as  cheaply  as  he  can. 
jVIen  must  live,  they  must  support  their  families, 
and  to  compel  them  to  take  less  than  a  decent 
living  wage  is  to  hold  them  in  slavery.  Every 
man  who  derives  an  income  from  such  sources 
must  know  whether  there  is  injustice  at  work 
or  not  in  whatever  he  benefits  by.  It  is  easy  to 
plead  ignorance,  but  the  ignorance  is  no  justifica- 
tion. When  we  take  money  from  something  we 
must  know  that  that  money  has  no  taint  of  in- 
justice about  it.  There  is  a  startling  passage  in 
the  Scriptures  that  I  have  often  thought  should 
be  repeated  more  frequently  in  our  time.  It  is, 
"  From  the  sins  we  know  not  of,  O  Lord  deliver 
us." 

There  are  many  things  that  are  done  for  the 
educated  rich  in  our  time,  things  that  are  full  of 
injustice,  yet  from  which  the  rich  derive  great 
benefits  for  which  they  will  be  held  responsible. 
I  cannot  see  it  else.  We  hear  much  in  our  time 
of  the  stewardship  of  wealth,  of  the  fact  that  if  a 
man  has  much  more  money  than  others  he  is 
bound  thereby  to  do  more  good  with  it,  just  inas- 
much as  he  has  superfluous  means  must  he  ac- 
complish not  only  actually  more  but  proportion- 


416  THE  COLLEGE  MAN  IN  LIFE 

ately  more  than  those  who  are  less  wealthy  around 
him.  What  is  true  thus  of  material  wealth  is 
even  truer  of  intellectual  wealth.  The  man  who 
has  more  education  than  his  neighbors  is  bound 
thereby  to  be  helpful  to  his  neighbors,  to  uplift 
them — how  much  one  hesitates  to  use  that  much- 
abused  word, — to  help  solve  their  problems,  to 
make  life  happier  for  them;  he  is  bound  to  use 
his  faculties,  God-given  as  they  are  and  de- 
veloped by  intellectual  opportunities,  not  for  him- 
self alone,  but  for  all  those  around  him. 

Unfortunately  recent  generations  of  college 
men  have  not  taken  this  responsibility  seriously, 
or  have  not  seen  the  duty  that  lay  before  them 
and  the  burden  imposed  on  them  by  the  very 
necessity  of  conditions.  As  a  consequence  they 
have  often  been  leaders  in  evil.  They  have  al- 
most invariably  been  protagonists  of  selfishness 
and  of  individualism.  So  long  as  they  have 
gotten  much  out  of  life  they  have  not  cared 
whether  others  have  had  the  paths  for  even  rea- 
sonable happiness  and  some  opportunities  in  life 
made  smooth.  Only  too  often  they  have  been  a 
stumbling  block  in  the  road  for  others  less  edu- 
cated than  they.  They  have  been  the  men  higher 
up,  the  bribers  who  are  ever  so  much  worse  than 
the  bribed,  the  company  directors  who  have  turned 
aside  and  seen  evil  and  injustice  and  pretended 
in  smug  propriety  that  it  was  no  affair  of  theirs, 
or  perhaps  have  said  in  self -justification — and 
such  self -justification! — that  if  they  did  not  do  it 


THE  COLLEGE  MA^  IN  LIFE  417 

others  would;  the  wealthy  men  who  have  used 
every  means  to  get  around  the  law  to  oppress  the 
poor,  to  add  useless  wealth  to  useless  wealth  at 
the  cost  of  others,  even  at  the  risk  of  subverting 
liberty,  overturning  government  and  ruining  this 
latest  experiment  in  democracy.  I  am  not  a 
muckraker,  but  we  cannot  hide  from  ourselves 
and  we  must  not  miss  the  real  meaning  of  the 
events  in  the  life  around  us  as  it  really  is.      ' 

When  I  think  of  the  situation  I  am  prone  to 
compare  with  it  other  generations  of  college  men 
and  what  they  accomplished.  History  is  not 
worth  while  if  it  tells  us  only  of  the  past.  It  is 
of  no  more  value  than  any  other  story,  real  or 
fictitious.  History  is  significant  only  when  the 
lessons  of  the  past  are  valuable  to  the  present. 
We  are  prone  to  think  of  education  as  influenc- 
ing deeply  only  recent  generations.  Let  me  try 
and  tell  you  briefly  the  story  of  some  generations 
of  college  men  who  accomplished  things  that  it 
will  be  worth  while  for  us  to  consider  to-day. 

When  the  universities  came  into  existence  in 
the  early  thirteenth  century  social  conditions  were 
about  as  bad  as  can  well  be  imagined.  The 
incursions  of  the  Goths  had  rubbed  out  all  the  old 
Roman  law  and  the  customs  of  the  various  na- 
tions had  been  obliterated  in  the  disorder  of  the 
migration  of  the  nations,  when  might  absolutely 
made  right.  Gradually  out  of  the  inevitable 
lawlessness  of  the  Dark  Ages  the  Church,  by  her 
beneficent   influence,   brought   the   beginnings   of 


418  THE  COLLEGE  MAN  IN  LIFE 

law  and  order  so  far  as  barbarous  peoples  could 
be  lifted  up.  In  the  sixth  century  there  was 
nearly  everywhere  in  EfUrope  social  chaos.  Dur- 
ing the  next  centuries  came  the  gradual  uplift. 
Christianity  in  Ireland  did  much  even  in  the 
preceding  century,  and  then  helped  in  the  regen- 
eration of  Europe  in  the  succeeding  centuries. 
Charlemagne  helped  greatly,  as  his  name  chron- 
icles, and  Alfred,  well  deserving  of  the  name 
the  Great,  carried  on  his  work.  In  the  tenth 
century  everywhere  the  dawn  of  better  things  was 
to  be  seen.  In  the  eleventh  century  organiza- 
tion of  civil  rights  begins  to  make  itself  felt; 
in  the  twelfth  century  the  universities  were  com- 
ing into  existence;  and  then  with  the  thirteenth 
century  there  was  a  great  rejuvenescence  of  hu- 
manity in  every  department,  but,  above  all,  in  the 
social  order.  Under  feudalism  men  had  no  rights 
of  themselves  except  such  as  were  conferred  on 
them  by  some  external  agency.  In  the  thirteenth 
century  the  essential  rights  of  man  begin  to  make 
themselves  felt  and  find  confident  assertion. 

It  is  not  hard  to  trace  the  steps  of  the  develop- 
ment. Magna  Charta  was  signed  in  1215.  The 
First  English  Parliament  met  in  1257.  The  rep- 
resentative nature  of  that  parliament  became  com- 
plete in  the  next  twenty  years.  The  English 
Common  Law  was  put  into  form  about  the  be- 
ginning of  the  last  quarter  of  the  century  and 
in  1282  Bracton  published  his  great  digest  of  it. 
The  principle  there  shall  be  no  taxation  without 


THE  COLLEGE  MAN  IN  LIFE  419 

representation,  our  own  basis  for  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence  five  centuries  later,  was  pro- 
claimed as  early  as  1260  and  was  emphasized 
by  the  great  Pope  Boniface  VIII  at  the  end  of 
the  century.  Early  in  the  century,  the  great 
Lateran  Council  decreed  that  every  diocese  in  the 
world  should  have  a  college  and  that  the  Metro- 
politan Sees  at  least  should  have  such  opportuni- 
ties for  post-graduate  study  as  we  now  call  uni- 
versities. The  first  great  Pope  of  the  century, 
Innocent  III,  laid  the  foundation  of  a  great  City 
Hospital  in  Rome  and  required  that  every  bishop 
throughout  the  world  should  have  one  in  his  See 
and  that  the  model  of  it  should  be  that  of  the 
Santo  Spirito  Hospital  in  Rome.  Leprosy  was 
an  epidemic  disease  among  the  people,  somewhat 
as  tuberculosis  is  now;  measures  were  taken  for 
the  segregation  of  lepers,  leper  hospitals  were 
built  for  them  outside  of  the  town,  and  these  great 
generations  solved  a  problem  in  hygiene  as  diffi- 
cult as  is  ours  with  regard  to  tuberculosis. 

Above  all,  the  rights  of  the  people  were  as- 
sured to  them.  At  the  beginning  of  the  century 
probabl}?^  the  most  striking  thing  among  the  popu- 
lation of  the  various  towns,  if  a  modern  had  a 
chance  to  visit  them,  would  be  the  number  of  the 
maimed  and  the  halt  and  the  blind.  We  would 
be  apt  to  wonder  where  were  the  industrial  and 
manufacturing  plants  responsible  for  all  this 
maiming  of  the  people,  and  look  in  vain  for  the 
belching  chimneys  of  factories  or  trains.     It  was 


420  THE  COLLEGE  MAN  IN  LIFE 

another  form  of  selfishness  that  produced  crip- 
ples in  the  twelfth  century.  Punishment  was  by 
maiming.  For  offences  against  property  a  man 
lost  an  eye,  or  a  hand,  or  a  leg.  Very  often  the 
offences  were  of  a  kind  that  we  would  resent 
punishment  for  in  the  modern  time.  If  a  man 
were  caught  poaching  on  a  nobleman's  preserves 
of  game,  and  sometimes  it  was  the  hunger  of 
his  children  that  drove  him  to  it,  he  lost  a  hand. 
For  a  second  offence,  he  lost  an  eye.  For  fail- 
ures to  pay  various  taxes,  if  the  offence  were 
repeated,  maiming  was  likely  to  be  the  conse- 
quence. All  this  was  in  as  perfect  accordance 
with  law  as  our  fellow-servant  or  contributory- 
negligence  doctrines.  So  that  the  sight  of  the 
maimed  person  might  deter  others  from  following 
this  example  of  recalcitrancy,  it  was  hoped  that 
these  cripples  would  not  die,  though  in  the  im- 
perfect surgery  of  the  time  they  often  did.  Al- 
ways the  selfish  pleasures  of  the  upper  classes  so- 
called,  when  they  are  thoughtless,  mean  the  loss 
of  all  possibilities  of  happiness  for  the  lower 
classes.  The  ways  of  it  all  may  be  different  from 
age  to  age,  the  results  and  the  responsibility  are 
always    the    same. 

In  the  thirteenth  century  all  this  was  changed. 
St.  Louis  of  France  sent  one  of  his  greatest 
noblemen  who  had  unreasonably  punished  student 
poachers  on  a  penitential  pilgrimage  to  the  Holy 
Land  and  inflicted  a  heavy  fine,  and  all  notwith- 
standing the  protest  of  the  most  powerful  nobles 


THE  COLLEGE  MAN  IN  LIFE  421 

of  his  kingdom  whose  rights  were  invaded.  How  we 
do  always  hear  about  the  invasion  of  the  rights  of 
the  entrenched  classes.  In  England  men,  even  men 
without  any  patent  of  nobility  or  clerical  privilege, 
began  to  have  rights  and  others  had  duties  to- 
wards them.  Above  all,  men  were  given  oppor- 
tunities to  bring  out  what  was  best  in  them.  The 
great  cathedrals  were  built,  the  great  monasteries, 
some  of  the  greatest  castles,  some  of  the  fine 
colleges  at  the  universities.  Many  of  the  muni- 
cipal buildings  were  erected  in  the  glorious  archi- 
tecture of  the  times.  At  these  men  were  em- 
ployed in  what  is  probably  the  happiest  work  that 
a  man  can  do.  They  had  the  chance  to  express 
themselves  in  the  beautiful  achievements  of  their 
hands.  The  village  blacksmith  made  gates,  and 
locks,  and  bolts,  and  hinges  for  cathedrals  that  are 
so  beautiful  that  all  the  world  has  wondered  at 
them  ever  since.  The  stained  glass  is  the  finest 
ever  made.  The  illuminated  books  are  beautiful 
beyond  description,  the  handsomest  of  all  times. 
The  needlework  of  the  vestments  stands  out  as 
the  most  beautiful  in  history.  The  men  and 
women  who  did  these  things  were  happy  in  the 
execution  of  beautiful  works  of  art,  and  as  the 
population  was  only  scanty  a  large  proportion 
of  them  were  closer  to  beautiful  things  than  the 
world  has  ever  known. 

Blessed  is  the  man  who  has  found  his  work. 
These  men  had  found  their  work  and  were  happy. 
Instead   of   going  out   to   the   deadly   routine   of 


422  THE  COLLEGE  MAN  IN  LIFE 

work  they  did  not  like,  but  that  they  had  to  do, 
because  they  must  earn  enough  so  as  to  get  bread 
enough  to  eat  for  themselves  and  family,  so  that 
they  might  live  and  go  out  and  work  once  more 
to-morrow  and  to-morrow,  and  so  on  to  the  end 
of  recorded  time,  the  workman  dreamt  of  the 
beauty  that  he  might  express;  went  out  hoping 
to  achieve  it ;  failed  often  but  still  hoped,  and  hope 
is  life's  best  consolation;  came  away  reluctantly, 
thinking  that  surely  he  would  accomplish  some- 
thing on  the  morrow.  It  is  the  difference  between 
mere  routine  work  and  the  handicraftsmanship 
that  satisfies  because  it  occupies  the  whole  man. 
Is  it  any  wonder  that  our  workman  is  discon- 
tented; is  it  any  wonder  that  the  England  of  that 
time  should  be  called  merry  England  and  the 
France  and  Italy  gay  France  and  Italy? 

All  this  organization  of  the  workmen  was  ac- 
complished by  the  university  men  of  the  time. 
They  were  mainly  clergymen,  but  they  had  in 
them  not  only  the  wish,  but  the  faculty  to  help 
those  around  them,  and  so  there  arose  the  beauti- 
ful creations  of  that  time  in  art,  architecture,  lit- 
erature and  political  freedom  which  did  so  much 
for  the  masses  of  the  people.  There  were  more 
students  at  the  universities  at  the  end  of  the 
thirteenth  century  to  the  population  of  the  vari- 
ous countries  of  Europe  than  there  are  at  the 
present  time.  That  seems  impossible,  but  so  do 
all  the  other  achievements  of  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury,— their  cathedrals,  their  arts  and  crafts,  their 


THE  COLLEGE  MAN  IN  LIFE  423 

universities,  their  literature, — until  you  go  back  to 
study  them.  There  is  absolutely  no  doubt  about 
these  statistics.  These  university  men  were 
trained  to  self-government  and  to  the  government 
of  others  in  the  university  life  of  the  time.  They 
took  that  training  out  with  them,  not  for  selfish 
purposes  alone,  but  for  the  help  of  others.  What 
they  accomplished  is  to  be  found  in  the  social  up- 
lift that  followed.  There  is  scarcely  a  right  or 
a  development  of  liberty  that  we  have  now  that 
cannot  be  found,  in  germ  at  least,  often  in  com- 
plete evolution,  in  the  thirteenth  century.  The 
Supreme  Courts  of  most  of  our  states  still  make 
their  decisions  following  the  old  English  common 
law  which  was  laid  down  in  that  century. 

But  it  will  be  said,  while  so  much  was  done 
for  the  workman,  have  we  not  heard  that  his 
wages  were  a  few  cents,  almost  nothing,  and  that 
his  hours  were  long  and  he  was  little  better  than 
a  slave?  Only  the  first  portion  of  this  has  any 
truth  in  it.  He  did  get  what  seems  to  us  a  mere 
pittance  for  his  day's  wages.  As  pointed  out  by 
]M.  Urbain  Gohier,  the  French  socialist,  when  he 
visited  this  country  to  lecture  a  few  years  ago, 
the  workmen  of  this  time  had  already  obtained  the 
eight-hour  day,  the  three  eights  as  they  are 
called,  eight, hours  of  work,  eight  hours  for  sleep 
and  eight  hours  for  themselves.  Besides  they 
had  the  Saturday  half-holiday,  or  at  least,  after 
the  Vesper  hour,  work  could  not  be  required  of 
them,  and  there  was  more  than  one  holy-day  of 


424  THE  COLLEGE  MAN  IN  LIFE 

obligation  every  two  weeks,  on  which  they  did 
not  work,  and  on  the  Vigil  of  which  work  ceased 
at  four  o'clock.  As  for  their  wages,  by  Act  of 
Parliament  they  got  fourpence  a  day  at  the  end 
of  the  century  and  this  does  not  seem  much,  but 
the  same  Act  of  Parliament  set  the  minimum 
wage  and  the  maximum  price  that  could  be 
charged  for  the  necessities  of  life.  A  pair  of 
hand-made  shoes  could  be  bought  for  fourpence, 
and  no  workman  can  do  anything  like  that  for 
a  day's  wage  at  the  present  or  usually  for  more 
than  double  his  daily  wages.  A  fat  goose  cost 
but  twopence  halfpenny,  and  when  the  father  of 
a  family  can  buy  two  fat  geese  for  his  daily 
wages,  there  is  no  danger  of  the  family  starv- 
ing. Our  wages  are  higher,  but  the  necessities 
of  life  have  gone  up  so  high  that  the  wages  can 
scarcely  touch  them. 

In  the  parliament  that  passed  these  laws  the 
greater  proportion  were  college  men.  I  suppose 
probably  three-fourths  of  the  members  of  both 
houses  had  been  at  the  university.  Now  that 
the  question  of  the  abolition  of  the  House  of 
Lords  is  occupying  much  attention,  we  sometimes 
hear  of  it  as  a  mediaeval  institution.  It  is  spoken 
of  as  an  inheritance  from  an  earlier  and  ruder 
time.  I  wonder  how  much  the  people  who  talk 
thus  know  about  the  realities.  They  must  be 
densely  ignorant  of  what  the  House  of  Lords 
used  to  be.  At  the  present  moment  there  are  in 
the  English  House  of  Lords  627  members,  only 


THE  COLLEGE  MAN  IN  LIFE  425 

75  of  whom  do  not  owe  their  position  directly  or 
solely  to  the  accident  of  birth.  Even  about  half 
of  this  seventy-five  can  only  be  selected  from 
the  hereditary  nobility  of  Scotland  and  of  Ireland. 
In  the  Middle  Ages  it  was  quite  different.  Until 
the  reformation  so-called  the  Lords  Spiritual 
formed  a  majority  of  the  House  of  Lords.  They 
consisted  not  only  of  the  bishops  but  of  the  ab- 
bots and  priors  of  monasteries  and  the  masters  of 
the  various  religious  and  knightly  orders.  This 
upper  chamber  of  the  olden  time  was  elected  in 
the  best  possible  sense  of  the  word.  They  were 
usually  men  who  had  risen  from  the  ranks  of  the 
people  and  who  had  been  chosen  because  of  their 
unselfishness  to  be  heads  of  religious  houses  and 
religious  orders.  There  were  abuses  by  which 
some  of  these  Lords  Spiritual  obtained  their 
places  by  what  we  now  call  pull,  but  the  great 
majority  of  them  were  selected  for  their  virtues, 
and  because  they  had  shown  their  power  to  rule 
over  themselves  had  been  chosen  to  rule  over 
others. 

They  were  men  who  could  own  nothing  for 
themselves  and  families,  and  in  whom  every  mo- 
tive, human  and  divine,  appealed  to  make  life  as 
happy  as  possible  for  others.  They  were  all  of 
them  university  men.  Compare  for  a  moment 
the  present  House  of  Lords  with  that  House  of 
Lords  and  you  will  see  the  difference  between 
the  old  time  and  the  present.  No  wonder  Eng- 
land  was   merry   England,   no   wonder   historian 


426  THE  COLLEGE  MAN  IN  LIFE 

after  historian  has  declared  that  the  people  were 
happier  at  this  time  than  they  have  ever  been  be- 
fore or  since,  no  wonder  men  had  leisure  to  make 
great  monuments  of  genius  in  architecture,  in  the 
arts  and  in  literature.  No  wonder  the  universities, 
in  the  form  in  which  they  have  been  useful  to 
mankind  ever  since,  were  organized  in  this  cen- 
tury; no  wonder  all  our  rights  and  liberties  come 
to  us.  Great  generations  of  the  university  men 
nobly  did  their  work. 

Young  men,  you  are  graduating  from  a  college 
that  is  literally  a  lineal  descendant  of  those  old- 
time  universities.  You  have  had  the  training 
of  heart  and  of  will  as  well  as  of  mind  that  was 
given  to  these  students  of  the  olden  times.  You 
have  been  taught  that  the  end  of  life  is  not  self, 
but  that  life  shall  mean  something  for  others  as 
well  as  yourself,  that  every  action  shall  be  looked 
at  from  the  standpoint  of  what  it  means  for 
others  as  well  as  for  yourselves,  and  that  you  shall 
never  do  anything  that  will  even  remotely  injure 
others. 

You  are  not  only  going  to  lead  honest  but 
honorable  lives.  You  are  going  to  be  true  to 
yourselves  first,  but  absolutely  faithful  to  others. 
They  are  telling  a  story  in  New  York  now  that, 
perhaps,  some  of  you  have  heard.  It  is  of  the 
young  man  who  had  graduated  at  the  head  of  his 
class  at  the  high  school  and  delighted  his  old 
father's  heart.  He  kept  up  the  good  work,  and 
came  out  first  in  his  class  at  college.     Then,  when 


THE  COLLEGE  MAN  IN  LIFE  427 

he  led  a  large  class  at  the  law  school,  you  can 
understand  how  proud  the  old  gentleman  was. 
Tom  came  home  to  practise  law  in  a  long-estab- 
lished firm  where  there  was  an  opening  for  him. 
Some  six  months  later  he  said,  one  day,  to  his 
father,  "  Well,  I  made  $10,000  to-day,"  and  the 
old  gentleman  said,  "  Well,  Tom,  that  is  a  good 
deal  of  money  to  make.  I  hope  you  made  it 
honesth\"  The  young  man  lifted  his  head  and 
said,  "  You  can  be  sure  that  I  would  not  make 
it  dishonestly."  "  That  is  right,"  the  old  man 
said.  "  Tell  us  how  it  came  about."  Then  Tom 
told  how  he  knew  that  a  trolley  line  was  going 
to  run  out  far  from  town  and  that  he  had  secured 
an  option  on  some  property  through  which  it 
was  going  to  pass.  "  You  know  old  Farmer 
Simpson  out  on  the  Plank  Road?"  he  said. 
"  His  boys  have  left  him  and  gone  to  the  city; 
he  cannot  work  his  farm  any  longer  himself,  and 
he  cannot  hire  men  for  it,  and  he  wants  to  get 
rid  of  it.  I  got  positive  information  yesterday 
through  one  of  our  clients  that  a  trolley  line  is 
going  out  through  that  farm.  When  I  went  out 
to  see  the  old  man  he  knew  me  at  once,  spoke 
about  you,  and  when  I  offered  to  try  to  sell  the 
farm  for  him  and  suggested  the  advisability  of 
signing  an  option  on  it  to  me  at  a  definite  figure, 
so  that  I  may  be  able  to  close  the  price  with  any 
one  who  wanted  it,  he  signed  at  once  at  a  ridicu- 
lously low  figure  because,  though,  as  he  said,  he 
did  not  care  to  sign  the  papers  for  lawyer  folk, 


428  THE  COLLEGE  MAN  IN  LIFE 

he  knew  I  was  different.  I  have  got  the  farm  at 
so  low  a  price  that  $10,000  is  the  smallest  profit 
I  can  look  for.  I  think  I  will  get  that  profit  out 
of  the  company  for  the  right  of  way,  and  then  I 
will  have  the  rest  of  the  farm  for  myself.  It  will 
make  a  mighty  nice  country  place." 

Then  there  was  a  pause.  The  old  gentleman 
did  not  lighten  up  any  over  the  story,  as  Tom 
seemed  to  think  he  would.  After  a  minute's 
silence  the  old  man  said,  "  Well,  Tom,  that  was 
not  what  I  sent  you  to  college  and  law  school 
for,  to  come  out  here  and  take  advantage  of  my 
old  neighbors.  I  thought  that  you  would  be 
helpful  to  us  all,  and  that  there  would  be  more  of 
happiness  in  the  world  because  of  your  education. 
You  may  call  that  transaction  honest,  and  per- 
haps it  is  legal,  but  I  know  that  it  is  dishonorable. 
Tom,  if  you  don't  give  Farmer  Simpson  back  his 
option  I  do  not  think  I  want  you  to  live  here 
with  me  any  more.  Somehow  I  couldn't  feel  as 
if  I  could  hold  up  my  head  if  ever  I  passed 
Farmer  Simpson  and  his  wife,  if  you  did.  You 
may  act  as  his  attorney  if  you  will  and  take  a 
good  fair  fee  for  it,  but  you  must  not  absorb  all 
the  profits  just  because  the  old  man  is  in  trouble 
and  is  glad  to  trust  an  old  neighbor's  son." 

Of  course  Tom's  father  was  dreadfully  old- 
fashioned  and  out  of  date.  Of  course  there  are 
some  people  who  will  say  that  this  sort  of  thing 
is  quixotic.  Now,  this  sort  of  thing  is  what  higher 
education    should    mean,    and    does    mean,    in    a 


THE  COLLEGE  MAN  IN  LIFE  429 

Catholic  college.  Your  principles  are  not  taught 
you  for  the  sake  of  exercises  of  piet}'^,  nor  attend- 
ance at  religious  duties.  These  you  have  got  to 
do  an3"how,  but  they  are  meant  to  inflow  into 
every  action  of  your  life  and  to  make  the  basic 
principle  of  them  all,  "  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neigh- 
bor as  thyself." 

You  are  graduating  from  a  Catholic  college 
with  high  aims,  you  have  had  many  advantages, 
more  than  are  accorded  usually  in  our  time  to 
men  of  your  years  in  the  training  of  heart  and 
will  as  well  as  intellect,  and  much  is  expected  of 
you.  You  are  rich  in  real  education  and  a  stew- 
ardship of  great  intellectual  and  moral  wealth  is 
given  over  to  you,  and  you  must  be  better  than 
others  and  be,  above  all,  ever  helpful  to  others. 
Your  education  was  not  given  for  your  benefit, 
but  for  that  of  the  community.  Your  neighbors 
are  all  round  you.  See  that  at  the  end  of  your  life 
they  shall  all  be  happier  because  you  have  lived. 
If  you  do  not  do  so  you  shall  sadly  disappoint  the 
hopes  of  j^our  teachers  and,  above  all,  you  shall 
be  false  to  the  trust  that  has  been  confided  to  you. 

Pass  on  the  torch  of  charity.  Let  all  the  world 
be  dear  to  j^ou  in  the  old-fashioned  sense  of  that 
dear  old  word  charit}%  not  merely  distantly 
friendly  in  the  new-fangled  sense  of  the  long 
Greek  term  philanthropy.  Be  just  while  you  are 
living  your  lives  and  you  Avill  not  have  the  burden 
of  philanthropy  that  so  many  rich  men  are  now 
complaining  of  in  your  older  years,  and,  above  all. 


430  THE  COLLEGE  MAN  IN  LIFE 

you  will  not  have  the  contempt  and  aversion  of 
those  who  may  accept  your  bounty,  but  who  know 
how  questionably  you  acquired  the  means  of  giv- 
ing it  and  are  not  really  thankful. 

I  have  done  but  for  just  one  Mord.  Be  just 
and  fear  not.  If  you  will  be  just  in  your  dealing 
with  men,  you  will  have  no  need  for  further  ad- 
vice and  no  need  for  repentance.     I  thank  you. 


NEW  ENGLANDISM 


**  It  isn't  so  much  the  ignorance  of  manjcind  that  makes 
them  ridiculous  as  the  knowing  so  many  things  that  ain't 
so." — Josh  Billings,  writing  as  "  Uncle  Esek  "  in  the 
"  Century" 


NEW  ENGLANDISM  * 

There  is  a  little  story  told  of  a  supposed  re- 
cent celestial  experience,  that  seems,  to  some  peo- 
ple, at  least — perhaps  it  may  be  said  without 
exaggeration,  to  most  of  those  alas!  not  born  in 
New  England — to  illustrate  very  well  the  attitude 
of  New  Englanders,  and  especially  of  the  Bos- 
tonese  portion  of  the  New  England  population, 
towards  all  the  rest  of  the  world  and  the  heavens 
besides.  St.  Peter,  the  celestial  gate-keeper,  is 
supposed  to  be  disturbed  from  the  slumbers  that 
have  been  possible  so  much  oftener  of  late  years 
because  of  the  infrequent  admissions  since  the 
world  has  lost  interest  in  other-worldliness,  by  an 
imperious  knocking  at  the  gate.  "  Who's  there?  " 
he  asks  in  a  very  mild  voice,  for  he  knows  by 
long  experience  that  that  kind  of  knocking  usu- 
ally comes  from  some  grand  dame  from  the  ter- 
restrial regions.     The  reply,  in  rather  imperative 

*  The  material  for  this  was  collected  for  a  banquet  address  in 
Boston  on  Evacuation  Day,  1909,  before  the  Knights  of  Columbus. 
It  was  developed  for  various  lectures  on  the  history  of  education,  in 
order  to  illustrate  how  easy  it  is  to  produce  a  tradition  which  is  not 
supported  by  historical  documents.  In  its  present  form  it  appeared 
as  an  article  in  the  West  Coast  Magazine  for  July,  1910,  at  the  request 
of  the  editor,  Mr.  John  S.  McGroarty,  with  whom,  more  years  ago 
than  either  of  us  care  to  recall  now,  I  had  learned  the  New  England 
brand  of  United  States  history  at  a  country  school. 


434  NEW  ENGLANDISk 

tone,  is,  "  I  am  Mrs.  Beacon  from  Boston,"  with 
emphasis  on  the  Boston,  "  Well,  madam,"  Peter 
says  in  reply,  "  you  may  come  in,  but,"  he  adds 
with  a  wisdom  learned  doubtless  from  many  pre- 
vious incidents  of  the  same  kind,  "  you  won't  like 
it." 

Of  course,  the  thoroughgoing  admiration  of 
New  England  people,  and  especially  of  Boston- 
ians,  for  all  that  is  New  England,  and,  above  all, 
all  that  is  Boston,  has  been  well  recognized  for  a 
long  while  and  has  not  failed  of  proper  appre- 
ciation, to  some  degree  at  least,  even  in  New 
England  itself.  To  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  we 
owe  that  delightful  characterization  of  it  in  the 
"  Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast  Table,"  "  Boston 
State  House  is  the  hub  of  the  solar  system.  You 
could  not  pry  that  out  of  a  Boston  man  (and  a 
fortiori  I  think  it  may  be  said  out  of  a  Boston 
woman)  if  you  had  the  tire  of  all  creation  straight- 
ened out  for  a  crowbar."  James  Russell  Lowell 
expressed  the  same  idea  very  forcibly  in  other 
words  in  some  expressions  of  his  essay  on  "A 
Certain  Condescension  in  Foreigners,"  that  have 
been  perhaps  oftenest  quoted  and  are  dear  to 
every  true  New  Englander's  heart.  Of  course, 
he  meant  it  a  great  deal  more  than  half  in  jest, 
but  who  of  us  who  know  our  Down  Easterners 
doubt  that  most  of  them  take  it  considerably 
more  than  half  in  earnest?  Their  attitude  shows 
us  very  well  how  much  the  daughter  New  Eng- 
land was  ready  to  take  after  mother  England  in 


NEW  ENGLANDISM  435 

the  matter  of  thinking  so  much  of  herself  that 
she  must  perforce  be  condescending  to  others. 

Lowell's  expression  is  worthy  to  be  placed  be- 
side that  of  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  for  the 
guidance  of  American  minds.  They  are  keys  to 
the  situation.  "  I  know  one  person,"  said  Lowell, 
"  who  is  singular  enough  to  think  Cambridge 
(Mass.)  the  very  best  spot  on  the  habitable  globe. 
'  Doubtless  God  could  have  made  a  better,  but 
doubtless  he  never  did.' "  It  only  needed  his 
next  sentence  fully  to  complete  the  significance  of 
Boston  and  its  academic  suburb  in  the  eyes  of 
every  good  Bostonian.  "  The  full  tide  of  human 
existence  may  be  felt  here  as  keenly  as  Johnson 
felt  it  at  Charing  Cross  and  in  a  larger  sense." 

Of  course  there  is  no  insuperable  objection  to 
allowing  Xew  Englanders  to  add  to  the  gayety 
of  nations  in  this  supreme  occupation  with  them- 
selves, and  we  would  gladly  suffer  them  if  only 
they  would  not  intrude  their  New  Englandism 
on  some  of  the  most  important  concerns  of  the 
nation.  But  that  is  impossible,  for  New  Eng- 
landism is  most  obtrusive.  It  is  New  England 
that  has  written  most  of  the  history  of  this 
country  and  its  influence  has  been  paramount  on 
most  of  our  education.  It  has  supplied  most  of 
the  writers  of  history  and  moWded  most  of  the 
school-teachers  of  the  countrj\  The  consequence 
has  been  a  stamping  of  New  Englandism  all  over 
our  history  and  on  the  minds  of  rising  genera- 
tions  for  the  better  part  of   a  century,   with  a 


436  NEW  ENGLANDISM 

perversion  of  the  realities  of  history  in  favor  of 
New  England  that  is  quite  startling  when  at- 
tention is  particularly  directed  to  it. 

The  editors  of  the  "  Cambridge  Modern  His- 
tory," in  their  preface,  called  attention  to  the 
immense  differences  between  what  may  be  called 
documentary  and  traditional  history.  They  de- 
clare that  it  has  become  "  impossible  for  historical 
writers  of  the  present  age  to  trust  without  reserve 
even  to  the  most  respected  secondary  authorities. 
The  honest  student  finds  himself  continually  de- 
serted, retarded,  misled,  by  the  classics  of  his- 
torical literature,  and  has  to  hew  his  own  way 
through  multitudinous  transactions,  periodicals, 
and  official  publications  in  order  to  reach  the 
truth."  Most  people  reading  this  would  be  prone 
to  think  that  any  such  arraignment  of  American 
history,  as  is  thus  made  by  the  distinguished  Cam- 
bridge editors  of  history  in  general,  would  be 
quite  out  of  the  question.  After  all,  our  history, 
properly  speaking,  extends  only  over  a  couple  of 
centuries  and  we  would  presumably  be  too  close 
to  the  events  for  any  serious  distortion  of  them 
to  have  been  made.  For  that  reason  it  is  inter- 
esting to  realize  what  an  unfortunate  influence  the 
fact  that  our  writers  have  come  mainly  from  New 
England  and  have  been  full  of  the  New  England 
spirit,  has  had  on  our  American  history. 

Every  American  schoolboy  is  likely  to  be  pos- 
sessed of  the  idea  that  the  first  blood  shed  in  the 
Revolution  was  in  the  so-called  Boston  Massacre. 


i 


NEW  ENGLANDISM  437 

It  is  well  known  that  that  event  thus  described 
was  nothing  more  than  a  street  brawl  in  which 
five  totally  unarmed  passers-by  were  shot  down 
without  their  making  the  slightest  resistance,  as 
an  act  of  retaliation  on  the  part  of  drunken 
soldiers  annoyed  by  boys  throwing  snowballs  at 
them.  This  has  been  magnified  into  an  important 
historical  event.  Two  months  before  it,  however, 
there  was  an  encounter  in  New  York  with  the 
citizens  under  arms  as  well  as  the  soldiers,  and  it 
was  at  Golden  Hill  on  Manhattan  Island  and  not 
in  Boston  that  the  first  blood  of  the  Revolution 
was  shed.  Miss  Mary  L.  Booth,  in  her  "  History 
of  the  City  of  New  York,"  says:  "Thus  ended 
the  Battle  of  Golden  Hill,  a  conflict  of  two 
days'  duration,  which,  originating  as  it  did  in 
the  defense  of  a  principle,  was  an  affair  of  which 
New  Yorkers  have  just  reason  to  be  proud,  and 
which  is  worthy  of  far  more  prominence  than 
has  usually  been  given  it  by  standard  historians. 
It  was  not  until  nearly  two  months  after  that 
the  Boston  Massacre  occurred,  a  contest  which 
has  been  glorified  and  perpetuated  in  history, 
yet  this  was  second  both  in  date  and  in  sig- 
nificance to  the  New  York  Battle  of  Golden 
Hill." 

Practically  every  other  incident  of  these  times 
has  been  treated  in  just  this  way,  in  our  school 
histories  at  least.  Every  American  schoolboy 
knows  of  the  Boston  tea  party,  and  usually  can 
and  does  tell  the  story  with  great  gusto  because 


438  NEW  ENGLANDISM 

it  delights  his  youthful  dramatic  sense.  Not  only 
the  children,  but  every  one  else  seems  to  think 
that  the  organization  of  the  tea  party  was  entirely 
due  to  the  New  England  spirit  of  resistance  to 
"  taxation  without  representation."  How  few  of 
them  are  taught  that  this  destruction  of  the  tea 
had  been  definitely  agreed  upon  by  all  the  colonies 
and  that  it  was  only  by  chance  that  Massachusetts 
happened  to  be  first  in  the  execution  of  the 
project.  My  friend,  Dr.  Thomas  Addis  Emmet, 
in  his  article  on  "  Some  Popular  Myths  of 
American  History,"  in  the  Magazine  of  History 
(February,  1905),  has  stated  this  aspect  of  the 
question  very  forcibly.  "  Previous  to  the  arrival 
of  the  ships  in  Boston,  concerted  action  had 
been  agreed  upon,  as  has  been  already  shown, 
in  regard  to  the  destruction  of  the  tea,  from 
Charleston,  S.  C,  to  Portsmouth,  N.  H.  The 
people  of  Philadelphia  had  been  far  more  active 
and  outspoken  at  the  outset  than  they  of  Boston, 
and  it  was  this  decisiveness  which  caused  the 
people  of  Boston  to  act,  after  they  had  freely 
sought  beforehand  the  advice  and  moral  sup- 
port of  the  other  colonies." 

It  would  be  utterly  unjust  to  limit  the  move- 
ment which  culminated  in  the  Boston  Tea  Party 
to  any  one  or  even  several  of  the  colonies;  to 
make  so  much  of  the  Boston  incident  is  to  falsify 
history  in  fact,  but,  above  all,  in  the  impression 
produced  upon  the  rising  generation  that  Boston 
was  a  leader  in  this  movement.     The  first   tea- 


NEW  ENGLANDISM  439 

ship  arrived  in  Boston  November  28,  1773,  and 
two  others  shortly  after,  but  it  was  not  until  the 
evening  of  December  16th  that  their  contents 
were  thi'own  overboard.  Over  six  weeks  before 
this  a  precisely  similar  occurrence  had  taken  place 
in  New  York  without  any  such  delay,  and  though 
the  movement  proved  futile  because  it  was  under- 
taken on  a  false  alarm,  it  is  easy  to  understand 
that  due  credit  should  be  given  to  those  who  took 
part  in  it  for  their  thoroughgoing  spirit  of  oppo- 
sition to  British  measures.  On  this  subject  once 
more  Dr.  Emmet,  whose  great  collection  of 
Americana  made  him  probably  more  familiar  with 
the  sources  of  American  history  than  any  one  of 
our  generation,  has  been,  in  the  article  already 
quoted,  especially  emphatic. 

"  On  November  5,  1773,  an  alarm  was  raised 
in  the  City  of  New  York  to  the  effect  that  a  tea- 
ship  had  entered  the  harbor.  A  large  assembly 
of  people  at  once  occurred,  among  whom  those 
in  charge  of  the  movement  were  disguised  as 
Mohawk  Indians.  This  alarm  proved  a  false  one, 
but  at  a  meeting  then  organized  a  series  of  reso- 
lutions was  adopted  which  was  received  by  the 
other  colonies  as  the  initiative  in  the  plan  of  re- 
sistance already  determined  upon  throughout  the 
country.  Our  schoolbooks  are  chiefly  responsible 
for  the  almost  universal  impression  that  the  de- 
struction of  tea,  which  occurred  in  Boston  Har- 
bor, was  an  episode  confined  to  that  city,  while  the 
fact  is  that  the  tea  sent  to  this  country  was  either 


440  NEW  ENGLANDISM 

destroyed  or  sent  back  to  England  from  every 
seaport  in  the  colonies.  The  first  tea-ship  hap- 
pened to  arrive  in  Boston  and  the  first  tea  was 
destroyed  there;  for  this  circumstance  due  credit 
should  be  given  the  Bostonians.  But  the  fact  that 
the  actors  in  this  affair  were  disguised  as  JNIohawk 
Indians  shows  that  they  were  but  following  the 
lead  of  New  York,  where  this  particular  disguise 
had  been  adopted  forty-one  days  before,  for  the 
same  purpose." 

Just  as  the  Boston  Massacre  has  been  insistently 
pointed  out  as  the  first  blood  shed  for  American 
liberty,  so  the  Battle  of  Lexington  has  been  drilled 
into  our  school  children's  minds  as  the  first  organ- 
ized armed  resistance  to  the  British.  Without 
wishing  at  all  to  detract  from  the  glory  of  those 
who  fought  at  Lexington,  there  is  every  reason 
not  to  let  the  youth  of  this  countrj^  grow  up  with 
the  notion  that  Massachusetts  was  the  first  to  put 
itself  formally  under  arms  against  the  mother 
country.  Lexington  was  not  fought  until  April 
19,  1775.  The  battle  of  Alamance,  N.  C,  which 
occurred  on  May  16,  1771,  deserves  much  more 
to  be  considered  as  the  first  organized  resistance 
to  British  oppression.  The  North  Carolina  Regu- 
lators rather  than  the  New  England  Minute  Men 
should  have  the  honor  of  priority  as  the  first  armed 
defenders  of  their  rights  against  encroachment. 
The  subject  is  all  the  more  interesting  because 
the  British  leader  who  tried  to  ride  rough-shod 
over  stout  Americans  in  North  Carolina  and  met 


NEW  ENGLANDISM  441 

with  open  opposition  was  the  infamous  General 
Tryon  of  subsequent  Connecticut  fame.  Every 
one  knows  of  his  pernicious  activity  in  Con- 
necticut, very  few  that  he  had  been  previously 
active  in  North  Carolina.  That  is  the  difference 
between  history  as  "it  has  been  written  "  for  New 
England  and  the  South.  That  the  Battle  of  Ala- 
mance was  no  mere  chance  engagement,  and  that 
the  North  Carolinians  were  aflame  with  the  real 
spirit  that  finally  gave  freedom  to  the  colonies,  can 
be  best  realized  from  the  fact  that  the  first  Decla- 
ration of  Independence  was  made  at  Mecklenberg 
in  North  Carolina,  and  that  some  of  its  senti- 
ments, and  even  perhaps  its  phrases,  were  adopted 
in  the  subsequent  formal  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence of  all  the  colonies. 

For  those  who  may  be  surprised  that  North 
Carolina  should  have  been  so  prominent  in  these 
first  steps  in  Revolutionary  history  and  these 
primary  developments  of  the  great  movement  that 
led  to  the  freedom  of  the  Colonies,  for  we  are 
accustomed  to  think  of  North  Carolina  as  one  of 
the  backward,  unimportant  portions  of  the  coun- 
try, it  may  be  well  to  say  that  at  the  time  of 
the  Revolution  she  was  the  third  State  in  th^ 
Union  in  population,  following  Virginia  and 
Pennsylvania  in  the  number  of  inhabitants,  ex- 
ceeding New  York  in  population  by  the  total 
census  of  New  York  City  and  Long  Island,  and 
ahead  of  Massachusetts,  which  immediately  fol- 
lowed it  in  the  list  by  almost  as  many.    The  sturdy 


442  NEW  ENGLANDISM 

inhabitants  of  the  northern  of  the  Carolinas  had 
been  for  a  decade  before  the  Revolution  con-i 
stantly  a  thorn  in  the  side  of  the  British  govern- 
ment and  had  been  recognized  as  leaders  in  the 
great  movement  that  was  gradually  being  organ- 
ized to  bring  all  the  colonies  together  for  mutual 
help  against  the  encroachments  of  the  British 
government  on  their  rights.  Our  school  children 
fail  almost  entirely  to  know  this  because  they 
have  been  absorbed  by  Massachusetts  history — 
but  then  North  Carolina  did  not  have  the  good 
fortune  to  have  writers  of  history.  New  England 
had  them  and  to  spare,  and  with  a  patriotic  zeal 
for  their  native  heath  beyond  even  their  numbers. 
Of  course  it  may  be  said  that  these  are  old- 
time  historical  traditions  which  have  found  their 
way  into  history  and  are  difficult  to  get  out, 
though  most  of  those  who  know  any  history  real- 
ize their  absurdity,  and  the  modern  historian,  even 
though  he  may  be  from  New  England,  holds  the 
balance  much  more  equitably  between  the  dif- 
ferent portions  of  the  country.  Apparently  this  is 
just  what  is  not  true,  for  New  England  professors 
of  history  and  writers  of  history  still  continue  to 
write  in  the  same  old  strain  of  such  surpassing 
admiration  for  New  Englanders  that  every  other 
portion  of  the  country  is  cast  into  shadow.  It 
was  a  distinguished  professor  of  history  at  Har- 
vard who,  within  five  years,  in  an  important  his- 
torical work,*  said:  "  Whatever  the  social  mixture 

*  "  The  American  Nation,"  27  vols. 


NEW  ENGLANDISM  443 

of  the  future,  one  thing  is  certain;  the  standards, 
aspirations  and  moral  and  political  ideas  of  the 
original  English  settlers  not  only  dominate  their 
own  descendants,  but  permeate  the  body  of  im- 
migrants of  other  races — the  Puritans  have  fur- 
nished the  little  leaven  that  leavens  the  whole 
lump." 

One  wonders  just  what  such  a  sentence  means 
and,  of  course,  finds  it  in  many  ways  amazingly 
amusing.  One  would  think  that  the  only  Eng- 
lish settlers  were  the  Puritans,  and  that  they  had 
had  great  influence  in  the  origin  of  our  govern- 
ment. Apparenth%  for  the  moment  at  least,  this 
Harvard  professor  forgot  in  his  enthusiasm  for 
the  forefathers  in  IMassachusetts  that  the  other 
branch  of  English  settlers,  those  of  Virginia, 
were  ever  so  much  more  important  in  the  colonial 
times  and  for  long  afterwards,  than  the  Puritans. 
Of  the  first  five  Presidents  four  were  from  Vir- 
ginia. It  is  possible  they  forget  now,  in  Massa- 
chusetts, that  only  one  was  from  Massachusetts, 
and  that  that  one  did  more  to  disturb  govern- 
ment "  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and  for  the 
people  "  than  any  other,  so  that  after  four  short 
years  the  country  would  have  no  more  of  him 
and  no  more  of  these  JMassachusetts  Puritans  for 
more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century.  This  dear, 
good  professor  of  Harvard  has  deliberately 
called  all  the  non-English  elements  in  our  popu- 
lation foreigners  because  of  his  absorption  in  New 
England.     He  said:   "  If  the  list  of   American 


444  NEW  ENGLANDISM 

great  men  be  scanned  the  contribution  of  the 
foreigner  stands  out  clearly.  The  two  greatest 
financiers  of  America  have  been  the  English  West 
Indian  Alexander  Hamilton  and  the  Genevan 
Albert  Gallatin.  Two  Presidents,  Van  Buren 
and  Roosevelt,  are  of  Dutch  stock;  five  others, 
Jackson,  Buchanan,  Grant,  Arthur  and  McKinley 
of  Scotch  and  Scotch-Irish  descent."  All  "  for- 
eigners "  except  the  New  Englanders !  Save  the 
mark! 

It  is  rather  interesting  to  find  that  their  con- 
temporaries of  the  Revolutionary  period  did  not 
share  that  high  estimation  of  the  New  England- 
ers which  they  themselves  clung  to  so  tenaciously 
and  have  writ  so  large  in  our  history  that  the 
tradition  of  New  England's  unselfish  wonder- 
working in  that  olden  time  has  never  perished. 
Most  of  us  are  likely  to  know  something  about 
the  rather  low  estimation,  at  most  toleration,  in 
which  during  the  Revolutionary  period  many  of 
the  members  of  Congress  from  New  England 
were  held  by  fellow-members  of  Congress  from 
other  portions  of  the  country.  They  were  the 
most  difficult  to  bring  into  harmony  with  others, 
the  slowest  to  see  anything  that  did  not  directly 
enhance  the  interests  of  New 'England;  they  were 
more  constantly  in  opposition  to  great  move- 
ments that  meant  much  for  the  future  'of  the 
colonies  themselves  and  the  government  of  the 
United  States  afterward  than  any  others.  We 
are  prone  to  excuse  this,  however,  on  the  score 


:  NEW  ENGLANDISM  445 

of  their  intolerant  Puritanism,  and  taught  by  our 
New  England  schoolmasters,  most  of  us,  at  least, 
fondly  cherish  the  notion  that  all  the  New  Eng- 
landers  made  supreme  sacrifices  for  the  country 
and  did  it  with  a  whole-hearted  spirit  of  self- 
forgetfulness  that  made  every  man,  above  all  in 
Massachusetts,  an  out-and-out  patriot.  It  is  curi- 
ous to  find  how  different  were  the  opinions  of 
those  from  other  portions  of  the  country  who 
came  in  contact  with  New  Englanders  at  this 
time,  from  that  which  is  to  be  found  in  their 
histories. 

Washington,  for  instance,  had  by  no  means 
the  same  high  opinion  of  the  New  Englanders, 
and,  above  all,  of  the  New  England  troops,  that 
they  had  of  themselves  and  that  their  historians 
have  so  carefully  presented  of  them.  It  is  said 
that  Sparks  edited  many  of  Washington's  criti- 
cisms of  New  Englanders  out  of  his  edition  of  the 
"  Life  and  Letters."  Certain  it  is  that  some  of 
the  letters  which  Sparks  did  not  consider  it  proper 
to  quote  from,  contain  material  that  is  very  inter- 
esting for  the  modern  historian  who  wants  to  get 
at  contemporary  documents,  and  for  whom  con- 
temporary opinions  such  as  that  of  Washington 
cannot  but  seem  especially  valuable.  In  a  letter 
from  the  camp  at  Cambridge,  August  20,  1775, 
to  Lund  Washington  at  ]Mt.  Vernon,  Washing- 
ton said:  "  The  people  of  this  Government 
[Massachusetts]  have  obtained  a  character  which 
they  by  no  means  deserve;  their  officers,  generally 


446  NEW  ENGLANDISM 

speaking,  are  the  most  indifferent  kind  of  people 
I  ever  saw.  I  have  already  broke  one  colonel  and 
five  captains  for  cowardice,  and  for  drawing  more 
pay  and  provisions  than  they  had  men  in  their 
companies.  There  are  two  more  colonels  now 
under  arrest  and  to  be  tried  for  the  same  offenses; 
in  short,  they  are  by  no  means  such  troops,  in 
any  respect,  as  you  are  led  to  believe  of  them 
from  the  accounts  which  are  published;  but  I 
need  not  make  myself  enemies  among  them  by 
this  declaration,  although  it  is  consistent  with 
truth.  I  dare  say  the  men  would  fight  very 
well  (if  properly  officered),  although  they  are  an 
exceedingly  dirty  and  nasty  people.  Had  they 
been,  properly  conducted  at  Bunker's  Hill  (on 
the  17th  of  June)  or  those  that  were  there  prop- 
erly supported,  the  regulars  would  have  met  with 
a  shameful  defeat,  and  a  much  more  considerable 
loss  than  they  did,  which  is  now  known  to  be  ex- 
actly 1,057,  killed  and  wounded.  It  was  for 
their  behavior  on  that  occasion  that  the  above 
officers  were  broke,  for  I  never  spared  one  that 
was  accused  of  cowardice,  but  brought  them 
to  immediate  trial." 

One  of  the  most  interesting  perversions  of  the 
history  written  by  New  Englanders  is  that  in 
their  emphasis  of  New  Englandism  they  have 
sometimes  signally  failed  to  write  even  their  own 
history  as  the  documents  show  it.  There  has 
been  much  insistence,  for  instance,  on  the  sup- 
posed  absolute  purity   of  the   English  origin  of 


NEW  ENGLANDISM  447 

the  settlers  in  New  England  and  especially  in 
Massachusetts  until  long  after'  the  Revolution. 
Palfrey,  in  the  introduction  to  his  "  History  of 
New  England,"  says:  "  The  people  of  New  Eng- 
land are  a  singularly  unmixed  race.  There  is 
probably  not  a  county  in  England  occupied  by  a 
population  of  purer  English  blood  than  they  are." 
Senator  Lodge,  forty  years  later,  in  his  "  His- 
tory of  the  Revolution,"  re-echoes  Mr.  Palfrey's 
words,  and  says  that  "  the  people  were  of  almost 
pure  English  blood,  with  a  small  infusion  of 
Huguenots  and  a  slight  mingling  in  New  Hamp- 
shire of  Scotch-Irish  from  Londonderry."  Dur- 
ing the  past  ten  years  the  Secretary  of  State  of 
Massachusetts,  by  order  of  the  Legislature,  has 
been  compiling  from  the  state  archives  the  muster 
roll  of  the  JNIassachusetts  soldiers  and  sailors  of 
the  Revolutionary  War.  This  does  not  bear  out 
at  all  what  Mr.  Palfrey  and  Mr.  Lodge  have  as- 
serted so  emphatically  as  to  the  exclusively  Eng- 
lish origin  of  the  population  of  New  England 
and,  above  all,  of  Massachusetts  at  this  critical 
time.  There  is  not  a  familiar  Irish  name  that 
does  not  occur  many  times.  The  fighting  race 
was  well  represented.  There  were  167  Kelly s 
and  79  Burkes,  though  by  some  unaccountable 
circumstance  only  24  Sheas.  There  were  388 
O'Briens  and  other  O's  and  Macs  galore.  There 
are  Aherns  and  Brannigans  and  Bannons  and 
Careys  and  Carrolls  and  Connellys,  Connors  and 
Corcorans  and  Costellos  and  Cosgroves  and  Costi- 


448  NEW  ENGLANDISM 

gans,  and  so  on  right  through  the  alphabet.  Curi- 
ously enough  there  are  no  Lodges  on  the  muster 
roll,  but  there  is  not  an  Irish  name  beginning 
with  "  L  "  that  is  not  represented.  There  are  no 
less  than  69  Larkins  and  some  20  Learys  and 
Lonergans  and  Lanigans  and  all  the  other  Celtic 
patronymics  in  "  L." 

Dr.  Emmet,  who  has  investigated  very  care- 
fully the  question  of  the  deportation  of  the  Irish 
to  this  country  under  Cromw^ell,  says  that  many 
shiploads  of  them  were  sent  to  Massachusetts  in 
the  seventeenth  century.  He  declares  that  enough 
Irish  girls  were  sent  over  to  JNIassachusetts  at 
this  time  to  furnish  wives  for  all  the  immediate 
descendants  of  the  Puritans.  There  are  certainly 
many  more  Irish  names  than  are  dreamt  of  in  the 
very  early  times.  Priscilla  Alden's  name  before 
she  tempted  John  to  give  her  his  rather  pretty 
name,  has  never  found  its  way  into  poetry  be- 
cause no  poetry  would  stand  it — it  was  Mullen  or 
Mulhns. 

Even  after  the  Revolution  the  place  of  New 
England,  but  especially  Massachusetts,  in  the 
Republic  has  been  sadly  misrepresented  in  our 
American  history  as  a  rule,  because  our  school 
historians  at  least  have  usually  been  Bostonians. 
When  Washington,  in  1789,  made  his  first  visit 
as  President  of  the  United  States  to  New  Eng- 
land, he  was  received  very  enthusiastically  in  Con- 
necticut, though  this  state  had  not  been  wholly 
favorable  to  the  new  government,  but  in  Massa- 


NEW  ENGLANDISM  449 

chusetts  his  reception  was  distinctly  cold,  and  in- 
deed, almost  insulting.  John  Hancock  was  Gov- 
ernor of  this  State  and  he  absolutely  refused  to 
meet  the  President  at  the  State  line,  though  most 
other  Governors  had  done  this,  and  while  Presi- 
dent Washington  was  in  Boston  he  declined  even 
to  call  on  him.  The  reason  for  this  was  the  as- 
sumption of  a  characteristic  Massachusetts  atti- 
tude. There  seems  no  doubt  now  that  John 
Hancock,  not  because  he  was  pompous  John 
Hancock,  not  because  he  was  the  Governor 
of  Massachusetts — and  this  idea  had  been  fos- 
tered among  his  people — honestly  believed  that 
the  Governor  of  Massachusetts  was  a  greater 
man  in  everj^  way  than  the  President  of  the 
nation. 

There  are  many  who  might  say  that  this  state 
of  mind  has  endured  even  to  the  present  time. 
Certainly  Massachusetts'  representative  men  have 
constantly  set  the  interests  of  their  commonwealth 
above  those  of  the  Union.  New  England  has 
always  had  a  tendency  that  way.  During  the 
newspaper  agitation  over  the  recent  tariff  bill  one 
of  the  cartoonists  represented  the  United  States 
as  a  puppy  dog  with  New  England  as  the  tail, 
with  the  caption,  "  How  long  is  the  tail  going  to 
wag  the  dog? "  During  the  second  war  with 
Great  Britain  in  1812  New  England  was  the 
most  recalcitrant  portion  of  the  Union,  and  an- 
other conceited  Governor  of  the  State  hampered 
the    nation    in    every    way.      Our    histories    for 


450  NEW  ENGLANDISM 

schools,  at  least,  have  been  so  written  as  to  pro- 
duce the  impression  that  only  the  South  ever  was 
dissatisfied  with  the  Union,  inclined  to  be  rebelli- 
ous and  ready  to  talk  about  the  nullification  of  the 
compact  which  bound  the  states  together.  The 
Hartford  convention  is  mentioned,  but  not  given 
near  the  place  that  it  deserves,  since  it  represents 
the  feeling,  very  rife  at  that  time,  that  such  a 
procedure  as  nullification  was  quite  justifiable, 
Twelve  delegates  from  Massachusetts  were  pres- 
ent in  this  convention  and  there  was  a  decided 
spirit  of  rebellion  against  the  general  govern- 
ment because,  forsooth,  the  war  had  injured 
Boston's   business. 

It  is  not  alone  in  histor}^  however,  that  New 
England's  thoroughgoing  admiration  for  herself 
has  served  to  disturb  the  attainment  of  truth  by 
the  rising  generation  of  Americans.  Besides  ex- 
aggerating the  comparative  influence  of  New 
England  in  the  affairs  of  the  country,  they  have 
exaggerated  the  place  of  favorite  New  England 
authors  in  the  literature  of  the  world  to  such 
a  degree  that  growing  young  America  cannot  help 
but  have  a  number  of  false  notions  of  compara- 
tive literary  values,  which  he  has  to  rid  himself 
of  before  he  is  able  to  attain  any  proper  appre- 
ciation of  world  literature  or  even  of  English 
literature.  A  little  group  of  New  England  liter- 
ary folk  came  into  prominence  about  the  middle 
of  the  nineteenth  century.  Because  they  were  the 
best  that   New   England   could   produce,   appar- 


NEW  ENGLANDISM  451 

ently  they  were  considered  by  New  Englanders 
as  the  best  in  the  world.  English  critics,  of  course, 
laughed  at  their  self-complacency,  but  our  New 
England  schoolmasters  took  New  England's  writ- 
ers so  seriously  and  proceeded  to  write  so  much 
about  them  and  make  them  so  much  the  subject 
of  teaching  not  alone  in  New  England  but  in 
every  part  of  the  country,  that  now  it  is  almost 
impossible  to  get  our  people  to  accept  any  true 
standards,  since  admiration  for  these  quite  unim- 
portant New  England  writers  has  ruined  any 
proper  critical  literary  appreciation. 

As  a  consequence  our  rising  generations  for 
some  time  have  been  inclined  to  take  Emerson 
seriously  as  a  great  philosopher,  writer  and 
thinker.  They  have  been  very  prone  to  accept 
dear  old  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  kindliest  of 
men,  charmingest  of  writers,  as  a  great  literary 
man.  There  have  literally  been  hundreds  of  Eng- 
lish ^mters  such  as  these  in  the  past  three  cen- 
turies of  English  literary  history,  who  now  take 
up  at  most  but  a  few  lines  in  even  large  histories 
of  English  literature.  Taking  Emerson  seriously 
is  fortunately  going  out  of  fashion.  If  one 
wanted  a  criterion  of  the  depth  of  thought  of  the 
generation  that  accepted  him  originally  and  passed 
him  along  as  a  significant  philosophic  prophet, 
then  surely  one  need  go  no  farther.  Our  op- 
timistic Carlyle,  writing  in  a  minor  key,  looms 
up  so  much  smaller  now  than  a  generation  ago 
that  we  can  readily  realize  how  New  England- 


452  NEW  ENGLANDISM 

ism  infected  literary  and  philosophic  standards. 
What  is  thus  said  of  Eimerson  may  be  repeated, 
with  perhaps  a  little  less  emphasis,  of  the  other 
writers  whom  New  England  has  insisted  on  pro- 
claiming to  the  world  as  representative  of  all  that 
was  best  and  highest  in  literature — because  for  a 
moment  they  commanded  attention  in  New  Eng- 
land. 

There  was  a  time,  not  so  long  ago,  when  it  was 
considered  the  proper  thing  in  this  country  to 
talk  of  Longfellow  as  a  great  poet.  Of  course, 
no  one  does  so  any  more.  The  devotion  to  him 
of  so  much  time  in  our  schools,  while  so  many 
much  more  important  contributions  to  our  Eng- 
lish poetry  have  but  scanty  attention  paid  them, 
is  still  producing  not  only  a  false  impression 
on  children's  minds  as  to  his  proper  place  in  liter- 
ature, but  is  playing  sad  havoc  with  literary 
standards  generally,  so  far  as  they  may  be  the 
subject  of  teaching.  Longfellow  was,  of  course, 
nothing  more  than  a  pleasant  balladist  and  a 
writer  of  conventional  thoughts  on  rather  com- 
monplace themes  in  reasonably  smooth  verse.  For 
really  profound  thought  Longfellow's  poetry  has 
never  a  place.  His  loftiest  flights  of  imagination 
do  not  bring  him  anywhere  near  the  great  mys- 
teries of  human  life  or  the  deep  thoughts  that  run 
through  men's  minds  when  they  are  touched  to 
the  quick.  Of  the  sterner  passions  of  men  he 
had  scarcely  an  inkling. 

Whittier,  of  course,  has  much  more  real  poetry 


NEW  ENGLANDISM  453 

in  his  little  store  of  verse  than  Longfellow,  but 
Whittier's  voice  is  only  a  very  low  treble  and  his 
religious  training  was  too  narrow  to  permit  him 
any  breadth  of  poetic  feeling.  No  one  thinks 
now  that  anything  that  Whittier  wrote  will  live 
to  be  read  by  any  but  curious  students  of  certain 
anti-slavery  movements  in  connection  with  the 
history  of  our  civil  war.  He  will  have  an  interest 
for  antiquarian  litterateurs,  scarcely  more  than 
that.  Of  James  Russell  Lowell's  rather  charm- 
ing academic  verse  one  would  prefer  to  say  noth- 
ing, only  that  the  serious  study  of  it  in  our  schools 
leads  the  present  generation  to  think  that  he,  too, 
must  be  considered  seriously  as  a  poet.  It  is 
doubtful  if  Russell  Lowell  ever  thought  of  himself 
as  a  poet  at  all.  Appropriate  thoughts  charm- 
ingly expressed  for  occasions,  in  verse  reasonably 
tuneful,  he  could  do  better  than  most  men  of  his 
time  in  America — that  was  all.  Of  real  poetic 
quality  there  is  almost  none.  Lowell's  verse  will 
not  be  read  at  all  except  by  the  professional 
critic  before  another  generation  has  passed,  and  I 
am  sure  that  no  one  realized  this  better  than 
Lowell  himself. 

What  Longfellow  and  Lowell  will  be  remem- 
bered for  in  the  history  of  ninteenth  century  liter- 
ature, most  of  the  rising  generation  of  Ameri- 
cans know  very  little  about  and  the  great  ma- 
jority of  them  completely  ignore.  It  is  for  their 
critical  and  expository  work  in  introducing  great 
foreign  authors — really  great  poets — to  the  knowl- 


454  NEW  ENGLANDISM 

edge  of  their  countrymen  that  both  Longfellow 
and  Lowell  will  deserve  the  gratitude  of  all  fu- 
ture generations  and  some  of  their  work  in  this 
regard  will  endure  when  their  verse  is  forgotten. 
Longfellow's  edition  of  Dante  was  not  only  well 
worth  all  the  time  he  gave  to  it  during  thirty  years, 
but  represents  a  monument  in  American  litera- 
ture that  will  be  fondly  looked  back  to  by  many 
a  generation  of  English-speaking  people.  Very 
probably  of  his  work  in  verse  the  "  Golden 
Legend  "  will  mean  more  to  a  future  generation 
than  almost  anything  else  that  Longfellow  has 
done.  Above  all,  it  was  precious  in  making 
Americans  realize  how  profound  and  how  beauti- 
ful had  been  the  work  of  the  poets  of  Europe 
seven  centuries  ago. 

In  the  light  of  this  gradual  reduction  of  the 
value  of  New  England's  literature  to  its  lowest 
terms  it  is  extremely  amusing  to  find  occasion- 
ally expressions  of  the  value  of  the  New  Eng- 
land period  in  English  literature  as  expressed 
by  enthusiastic  New  Englanders  and,  above  all, 
by  ardent — what,  for  want  of  a  better  term  we 
must  call — New  Englanderesses.  One  of  these, 
Miss  Helen  Winslow,  has  recently  and  quite  de- 
servedly been  made  great  fun  of  by  Mr.  H.  W. 
Horwin  in  an  article  in  the  National  Review 
(England),  headed,  "Are  Americans  Provin- 
cial?" which  brings  home  a  few  truths  to  us  in 
what  concerns  our  complacent  self-satisfaction 
with  ourselves.     Miss  Winslow  declares  that  the 


NEW  ENGLANDISM  455 

great  Bostonian  period  was  "  a  literary  epoch, 
the  like  of  which  has  scarcely  been  known  since 
the  Elizabethan  period."  She  proclaims  that 
"  The  Papyrus  Club  [of  Boston]  is  known  to 
men  of  letters  and  attainments  everywhere."  She 
notes  that  "  Scott,  Balzac  and  Thackeray  re- 
ceived a  legal  training,"  just  when  she  is  going  to 
add  that  "  Robert  Grant  is  also  a  lawyer."  She 
adds  that  "  young  people  everywhere  adore  the 
name  of  Sophie  Sweet"  (whoever  she  may  be). 
Is  it  any  wonder  that  the  ordinary  non- 
New-England  American  "  gets  hot  under  the 
collar "  for  his  countrymen  under  such  circum- 
stances ? 

Two  really  great  masters  of  literature  we  had 
in  America  during  the  nineteenth  century,  Poe 
and  Hawthorne.  Because  of  our  New  England 
schoolmasters,  as  it  seems  to  most  of  us,  Poe  has 
never  come  into  his  own  proper  appreciation  in 
this  country.  The  French  consider  him  the  great 
master  of  the  short  story,  and  that  has  come  to 
occupy  such  a  prominent  place  in  our  so-called 
literature  in  America,  that  one  might  look  for  an 
apotheosis  of  Poe.  He  is  the  one  writer  whose 
works  in  both  prose  and  verse  have  influenced 
deeply  the  literary  men  of  other  countries  be- 
sides our  own.  No  other  American  writer  has 
been  given  the  tribute  of  more  than  a  perfunc- 
tory notice  in  the  non-English-speaking  coun- 
tries. In  spite  of  this  Poe's  name  was  kept  out 
of  the  Hall  of  Fame  at  New  York  University, 


456  NEW  ENGLANDISM 

which  was  meant  to  enshrine  the  memory  of  our 
greatest  thinkers  and  literary  men,  though  we 
had  generally  supposed  that  the  national  selec- 
tion of  the  jury  to  decide  those  whose  names 
should  be  honored,  would  preclude  all  possibility 
of  any  narrow  sectional  influence  perverting  the 
true  purpose  of  the  institution.  Poe  has  never 
been  popular  in  New  England,  nor  has  he  been 
appreciated  at  his  true  worth  by  the  literary  cir- 
cles of  New  England.  Their  schoolmasterly  in- 
fluence has  been  pervasive  enough  to  keep  from 
Poe  his  true  meed  of  praise  among  our  peo- 
ple generally,  though  all  our  poets  and  liter- 
ary men  look  up  to  him  as  our  greatest  poetic 
genius. 

As  for  Hawthorne,  there  is  no  doubt  that  he  is 
our  greatest  American  writer  in  prose.  He  was 
the  one  man  in  New  England  with  a  great  mes- 
sage. His  writings  came  from  deep  down  in  the 
human  heart,  from  the  very  wellsprings  of  hu- 
man passion,  and  had  their  origin  not  far  from 
where  soul  touches  body  in  this  human  compound. 
The  English,  usually  supposed  to  be  slow  of 
recognition  for  things  American,  acknowledged 
his  high  worth  almost  at  once.  Some  of  us  here 
in  America,  indeed,  have  had  the  feeling  that  to 
a  great  extent  our  people  have  had  to  learn  the 
lesson  of  proper  appreciation  for  Hawthorne 
from  the  English-speaking  people  across  the 
water.  To  Americans,  for  years,  he  was  little 
more    than    a    story-writer,    not    so    popular    as 


NEW  ENGLANDISM  457 

many  another  writer  of  stories,  and  his  really 
great  qualities  were  to  a  great  extent  ignored. 
Because  Puritan  Xew  England  was  out  of  sym- 
pathy with  the  mystical  spirit  of  his  writings 
only  a  late  and  quite  inadequate  appreciation  of 
the  value  of  his  work  was  formed  by  his  country- 
men. Something  of  this  unfortunate  lack  of  appre- 
ciation crept  into  the  schoolmastering  of  the  coun- 
try, and  Hawthorne  is  probably  not  as  highly 
valued  in  his  native  land  as  he  is  in  England, 
though  France  and  German}^  have  learned  to 
look  up  to  him  as  our  greatest  of  American  liter- 
ary men — the  one  of  our  writers  who,  with  Poe, 
attracts  a  world  audience. 

When  there  is  question  of  anything  else  be- 
sides literature,  of  course,  New  England  has  no 
claims  at  all  to  make,  and  she  has  stood  for  maiiy 
unfortunate  austere  tendencies  in  American  life. 
For  anything  like  public  spirit  for  art  or  music 
or  aesthetics  in  any  department  the  Puritan  soul 
had  no  use.  Consequently  our  artistic  develop- 
ment was  seriously  delayed  as  a  nation  by  the 
influence  that  Xew  England  had  as  the  school- 
master of  the  country.  The  consequence  was  that 
our  churches  were  bare  and  ugty,  our  homes 
lacking  in  the  spirit  of  beauty  and  our  municipal- 
ities mere  places  to  live  and  make  money  in,  but 
with  no  provision  for  the  enjoyment  of  life.  It 
is  in  this  that  New  England  has  doubtless  done 
us  most  harm  and  it  is  for  this  reason  that  many 
people  will  re-echo  that  expression  of  a  descend- 


458  NEW  ENGLANDISM 

ant  of  the  Puritans  who  declares  that  it  would 
have  been  "  an  awfully  good  thing  when  the 
Puritans  landed  on  Plymouth  Rock  if  only  Plym- 
outh Rock  had  landed  on  the  Puritans."  It 
would  have  saved  us  an  immense  deal  of  inhibition 
of  all  the  art  impulses  of  this  country,  which 
were  almost  completely  choked  off  for  so  long 
by  the  narrow  Puritanism  so  rampant  in  New 
England  and  so  diffusively  potent  in  our  educa- 
tional system. 

In  conclusion  one  feels  like  recalling  once  more 
Lowell's  "  Essay  on  a  Certain  Condescension 
in  Foreigners."  Surely  the  daughter  New  Eng- 
land, consciously  or  unconsciously,  has  treated  the 
rest  of  the  country  very  much  like  Mother  Eng- 
land used  to  treat  nascent  English  America 
long  ago.  There  are  many  of  us  who  in  recent 
years  have  come  to  know  New  Englandism  and 
its  proneness  to  be  condescending,  who  have  felt 
very  much  like  paraphrasing,  with  the  addition  of 
the  adjective  "  new "  here  and  there,  certain 
of  Lowell's  best-known  sentences.  The  new  ver- 
sion will  make  quite  as  satisfactory  a  bit  of  satire 
on  our  Down  East  compatriots  as  Lowell's  hits 
on  the  mother  country  and  our  English  cousins 
across  the  water.  Very  probably  there  are  more 
people  who  will  appreciate  the  satire  in  this  new 
application  of  the  great  American  essayist's  words 
than  they  did  in  its  original  form:  "It  will 
take  (New)  England  a  great  while  to  get  over 
her  airs  of  patronage  toward  us,  or  even  passably 


NEW  ENGLANDISM  459 

to  conceal  them.  She  has  a  conviction  that  what- 
ever good  there  is  in  us  is  wholly  (New)  English, 
when  the  truth  is  that  we  are  worth  nothing  ex- 
cept so  far  as  we  have  disinfected  ourselves  of 
(Neo-)  Anglicanism." 


DATE  DUE 

1 

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CAVLOnO 

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